Federated Search Engine Research Articles

Federated Search in Libraries: An Overview in Academic Libraries

One essential piece of technology that simplifies the process of finding information across a variety of databases and sources in academic libraries is federated search systems. By using a single query interface, these systems, also known as meta-search engines, allow users to simultaneously search through a variety of resources, such as databases, books, and electronic journals. By combining results from several publishers and platforms into a single format, this feature greatly improves the efficacy and efficiency of academic research while also saving time and streamlining user interactions. An overview of federated search technology is given in this study, with particular attention on how it might be integrated into academic libraries. It talks about how these systems have developed, the technological difficulties they provide, and the advantages they have for educational institutions. The research also looks at case studies from different university libraries to showcase effective implementations. It also discusses the possibility for federated search systems in the future, including the incorporation of machine learning and artificial intelligence to enhance and customize search results. The purpose of this overview is to highlight the value of federated search engines in improving the usability and accessibility of scholarly materials, therefore assisting academic institutions in their larger endeavors to promote research and learning.

Shared decision-making approach to type 2 diabetes management.

To provide an online interactive decision aid to facilitate shared decision making in the context of medication choices for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The best available clinical prediction model for patients with T2DM was selected based on a review of guidelines, DynaMed, and UpToDate and a search of PubMed. A list of pharmacotherapeutic options for T2DM was compiled based on a review of guidelines, narrative reviews, and expert opinion. To determine the benefits and harms of each treatment, federated search engines were searched for meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials, supplemented by individual randomized controlled trials for outcomes not reported in meta-analyses. Approximately 2.1 million Canadians have T2DM, with a resulting increased risk of death, cardiovascular disease, and microvascular outcomes. While more than a dozen medication options are available, decisions regarding these medications are challenging, as patients vary in their preferences. Shared decision making has the potential to individualize these difficult decisions, but the number of diabetes-related outcomes and available treatment options have made this historically impractical. It is within this context that the PEER Diabetes Medication Decision Aid was developed. This decision aid provides patients with personalized 10-year risk estimates for 6 clinically important diabetes-related outcomes. The tool also allows patients to focus on the outcome that matters most to them and to compare the benefits and harms of up to 12 different treatment options. This information is displayed in personalized absolute numbers, along with practical considerations such as cost. The PEER Diabetes Medication Decision Aid provides a practical tool that can enable patients with T2DM to come to autonomous and well-informed medication decisions.

Searching Online for Art and Culture: User Behavior Analysis

With the constant expansion of the Web, search engines became part of people’s daily routines. How users behave during the search process depends on a variety factors, one of which is the topic of their search interest. This study focused on the behavior of users searching the Web for content related to art and cultural heritage. A proprietary, publicly available, federated search engine, in the form of a web and mobile app, was developed for this research’s purposes. This platform was used to monitor actual user behavior during a six-month period. Quantitative data related to the platform’s usage were collected and analyzed in order to provide a detailed picture of the way interested parties engaged with it. This information pertained not only to the search queries and results viewed, but also to the various characteristics of the search sessions themselves. The study presented an analysis of these data, with emphasis on query and result characteristics, usage devices, login preferences and session duration, and drew conclusions. The study’s findings showed, among other things, that art searchers showed a preference for shorter queries, a tendency for higher query repeatability, and showed interest in a wider number of results than general purpose searchers. Additionally, they were more keen to use desktop devices instead of mobile ones and displayed higher engagement metrics during longer search sessions or when logged in. These findings outlined an art searcher who was interested in concepts and people often revisited searches and results, showed interest for more than the first few hits, was attracted by rich content, and understood the art search process as a task which requires focus. They also pointed out a duality in the art search process itself which can be long and involved or short and purposeful.

An anti-infodemic virtual center for the Americas.

The Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) Anti-Infodemic Virtual Center for the Americas (AIVCA) is a project led by the Department of Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health, PAHO and the Center for Health Informatics, PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center on Information Systems for Health, at the University of Illinois, with the participation of PAHO staff and consultants across the region. Its goal is to develop a set of tools-pairing AI with human judgment-to help ministries of health and related health institutions respond to infodemics. Public health officials will learn about emerging threats detected by the center and get recommendations on how to respond. The virtual center is structured with three parallel teams: detection, evidence, and response. The detection team will employ a mixture of advanced search queries, machine learning, and other AI techniques to sift through more than 800 million new public social media posts per day to identify emerging infodemic threats in both English and Spanish. The evidence team will use the EasySearch federated search engine backed by AI, PAHO's knowledge management team, and the Librarian Reserve Corps to identify the most relevant authoritative sources. The response team will use a design approach to communicate recommended response strategies based on behavioural science, storytelling, and information design approaches.

User Evaluation and Metrics Analysis of a Prototype Web-Based Federated Search Engine for Art and Cultural Heritage

Content and metadata concerning a specialized field such as Art and Cultural Heritage are often scattered throughout the World Wide Web, making it hard for end-users to find, especially amid the vast and often commercialized general content of the Web. This paper presents the process of designing and developing a Federated Search Engine (FSE) that collects such content from multiple credible sources of the world of Art and Culture and presents it to the user in a unified user-oriented manner, enhancing it with added functionality. The study focuses on the challenges such an endeavor presents and the technological tools, design decisions and methodology that lead to a fully functional, Web-based platform. This implemented search engine was evaluated by a group of stakeholders from the wider fields of art, culture and media during a closed test and the insights and feedback gained by these tests are herein analyzed and presented. These insights contain both the quantitative metrics of user engagement during the testing period and the qualitative information presented by the stakeholders through interviews. The above findings are thoroughly discussed and lead to conclusions regarding the usefulness and viability of Web applications in the aggregation and diffusion of Art and Cultural Heritage related content.

Tanium reveal

Tanium Reveal is a federated search engine deployed on large-scale enterprise networks that is capable of executing data queries across billions of private data files within 60 seconds. Data resides at the edge of networks, potentially distributed on hundreds of thousands of endpoints. The anatomy of the search engine consists of local inverse indexes on each endpoint and a global communication platform called Tanium for issuing search queries to all endpoints. Reveal enables asynchronous parsing and indexing on endpoints without noticeable impact to the endpoints' primary functionality. The engine harnesses the Tanium platform, which is based on a self-organizing, fault-tolerant, scalable, linear chain communication scheme. We demonstrate a multi-tier workflow for executing search queries across a network and for viewing matching snippets of text on any endpoint. We analyze metrics for federated indexing and searching in multiple environments including a production network with 1.05 billion searchable files distributed across 4236 endpoints. While primarily focusing on Boolean, phrase, and similarity query types, Reveal is compatible with further automation (e.g., semantic classification based on machine learning). Lastly, we discuss safeguards for sensitive information within Reveal including cryptographic hashing of private text and role-based access control (RBAC).

Translating Clinical Questions by Physicians Into Searchable Queries: Analytical Survey Study.

BackgroundStaying up to date and answering clinical questions with current best evidence from health research is challenging. Evidence-based clinical texts, databases, and tools can help, but clinicians first need to translate their clinical questions into searchable queries. MacPLUS FS (McMaster Premium LiteratUre Service Federated Search) is an online search engine that allows clinicians to explore multiple resources simultaneously and retrieves one single output that includes the following: (1) evidence from summaries (eg, UpToDate and DynaMed), (2) preappraised research (eg, EvidenceAlerts), and (3) non-preappraised research (eg, PubMed), with and without validated bibliographic search filters. MacPLUS FS can also be used as a laboratory to explore clinical questions and evidence retrieval.ObjectiveOur primary objective was to examine how clinicians formulate their queries on a federated search engine, according to the population, intervention, comparison, and outcome (PICO) framework. Our secondary objective was to assess which resources were accessed by clinicians to answer their questions.MethodsWe performed an analytical survey among 908 clinicians who used MacPLUS FS in the context of a randomized controlled trial on search retrieval. Recording account log-ins and usage, we extracted all 1085 queries performed during a 6-month period and classified each search term according to the PICO framework. We further categorized queries into background (eg, “What is porphyria?”) and foreground questions (eg, “Does treatment A work better than B?”). We then analyzed the type of resources that clinicians accessed.ResultsThere were 695 structured queries, after exclusion of meaningless queries and iterations of similar searches. We classified 56.5% (393/695) of these queries as background questions and 43.5% (302/695) as foreground questions, the majority of which were related to questions about therapy (213/695, 30.6%), followed by diagnosis (48/695, 6.9%), etiology (24/695, 3.5%), and prognosis (17/695, 2.5%). This distribution did not significantly differ between postgraduate residents and medical faculty physicians (P=.51). Queries included a median of 3 search terms (IQR 2-4), most often related to the population and intervention or test, rarely related to the outcome, and never related to the comparator. About half of the resources accessed (314/610, 51.5%) were summaries, 24.4% (149/610) were preappraised research, and 24.1% were (147/610) non-preappraised research.ConclusionsOur results, from a large sample of real-life queries, could guide the development of educational interventions to improve clinicians’ retrieval skills, as well as inform the design of more useful evidence-based resources for clinical practice.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT02038439; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02038439

Impact of advent of electronic information resources on performance of library users

Purpose The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of advent of electronic information resources on “academic and carrier related core aspects of user performance”. Design/methodology/approach Seven sampled agricultural universities across northern India were surveyed personally by the investigator for collecting data about the questions under investigation through a structured questionnaire. The response of the users for each statement under investigation was collected with simple “Yes”/“No” option. The investigator also resorted to the telephonic and e-mail communication to collect prompt response and had a personal interaction with respondents to substantiate the collected responses and remove any ambiguity thereof. Findings It is found that the majority of respondents are of the opinion that due to advent of e-resources the users’ interest in studies has enhanced (62.90 per cent) and that the e-resources have played a significant role in timely completion/submission of their study related assignments (74.30 per cent). It is also evident that a good proportion of respondents agree that the advent of e-resources has laid a positive impact on performance of users in “academic examinations” (50.80 per cent), “competitive examinations” (52.80 per cent), and the “interviews” (46.18 per cent) they face. Statistically, it is also verified that the performance of users with respect to five aspects investigated in this study is significantly associated with advent of e-resources (p < 0.01), whereas it does not show any association with one aspect i.e. “timely completion of an academic degree”. Research limitations/implications The findings are based on mere opinion of users and need to be verified by devising a well-articulated methodology for verification of the user performance related facts both in print and electronic eras, independent of the users’ opinion. Practical implications The findings of this study shall prompt the budget allocating authorities of the libraries to reformulate their fund allocation policies. Findings of this study shall act as logical basis to enhance budget for improving the volume of e-resources. These also emphasize the fact that a provision of recurring fund needs to be created for facilitating single window based anytime anywhere access to the available e-information base, which may include annual subscription charges for availing (i) proxy software services for remote access and (ii) federated search engine for single window searching. Originality/value This is first work of its nature in northern Indian agricultural libraries. The findings will be useful for the authorities to decide about the degree of importance the libraries need to endorse with the procurement of information resources in electronic form. The study will really inspire the researchers and librarians to conduct similar studies in other specific domains of knowledge and come out with significant findings and suggestions.

Addressing a Discovery Tool’s Shortcomings with a Supplemental Health Sciences-Specific Federated Search Engine

ABSTRACTSome discovery tools may not necessarily be the best resources for searching the health sciences literature. This is especially true when the discovery tool is not a vendor-neutral product or when it does not deep search full-text electronic resources. Therefore, supplementing a discovery tool with a health sciences-specific federated search engine could be a viable option. This is a review of one university’s decision-making and implementation process for adding a health sciences-specific supplemental federated search engine. Included is a 30-month usage analysis of the federated search engine, along with website usability testing results.

Integration of EBSCO Discovery Service widget into the learning spaces of LMS

PurposeRecent advancement in technological development has encouraged distance learning institutions to be more productive and creative in effectively utilizing the Learning Management System (LMS). Among the many measures employed is the integration of federated search engine into the LMS which allows for a more productive and wider scope of information retrieval through the provisions of library resources and services. The purpose of this paper is to report one such case study in Wawasan Open University exploring the integration of federated search engine (EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) widget) into the learning spaces of LMS. Widgets resemble apps that enable the integration of EDS functionality in providing access for students to retrieve library learning resources from the convenience of the LMS, excluding the need to log onto the library.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents a discussion that highlights the development and conjectural implementation of a framework on the integration of the EDS widget into the University’s LMS. Data collection includes meta-analysis data from the micro- and macro-level infrastructure that make up the framework, namely, end-user layer, system layer and data management layer.FindingsFindings from this study addressed significant importance to the library in promoting effective search and utilization of information needs. The findings will also make clear recommendations in developing effective collaborations between the library and faculties. Although the implementation of this framework is still in a developmental stage, this study still provides pertinent information in validating the integration of EDS into the University’s LMS.Research limitations/implicationsWhile serious limitations are not anticipated, possible concerns do exist with programming algorithms in the integration of EDS into the LMS. These challenges will be reported in the paper as reference for future replications of studyPractical implicationsOne key implication is the increase in the usage of the library resources and the potential to reach a larger audience of remote library users.Originality/valueThe primary advantage is to minimize the need for multiple gateway login while ensuring the library to monitor relevant library databases activities throughout the system check of the LMS.

Tooling up to facilitate findability, virtual collaboration, and storytelling with data.

Technology matters more than ever in these challenging times. Given the competition between library services and the commercial sector, tight funding climate, and increasing calls for transparency and accountability, we need to take advantage of all the tools at hand. Technology tools provide critical opportunities for health sciences libraries to connect users to sought-after resources in an ever-deepening pool of available research, scholarship, and data; problem solve to achieve efficiencies and cost savings; reach out to users in ways more potent than ever; and strengthen and expand the role of the library within the institution and beyond. Every year, this column recognizes a handful of health sciences librarians and libraries for projects that use technology in innovative ways. Virtual projects refer to successful implementations of technological advancements and their real-world use in library environments—particularly those that extend services beyond the bounds of the physical library experience. An advisory committee of technology experts annually reviews submissions and selects those few that best demonstrate new technologies or applications of technologies that creatively solve problems, strengthen services, engage users, and are replicable at other health sciences libraries or contain elements that will be transferable to other settings. Thus, these inspiring projects warrant closer attention by the health sciences library community. We are pleased to present five technology projects that have successfully addressed issues that are common to health sciences libraries everywhere. This year's “technology laureates” stand apart for their innovation and relevance. Two librarians at Yale University created an ingenious search tool that enhances the efficiency of the comprehensive search process for the expert searchers at their library and across the country. Librarians from the University of Pittsburgh creatively developed the first-ever federated search engine for multiple preprint servers to help researchers quickly discover biomedical research in a preprint format. For the first time in this column, we are featuring a virtual project sponsored by a Medical Library Association chapter. The Midcontinental Chapter of the Medical Library Association took a risk and succeeded in offering an all-virtual annual meeting. What made the difference? Check out the authors' thoughtful lessons learned from their all-virtual conference experience. Because metrics matter, especially when it comes to fostering evidence-based librarianship (EBL) and public confidence in libraries, we are excited to highlight the Penn State dashboard project, which impressively communicates the library's value and impact on the community it serves. Finally, we want to spotlight the stunning infographics work of a librarian serving in a new, emerging role for medical librarians, that of a research and evaluation analyst, at the University of Massachusetts Center for Clinical and Translational Science. It is our hope and expectation that these projects will engender learning, spur action, and build capacity for continued work in the area of library technology to continuously reshape services to meet the evolving needs of our users. Please consider sharing your own virtual project in future columns to inspire your colleagues to embrace and leverage technology tools to transform services, workflows, and outreach. Submissions, suggestions, and questions should be directed to Susan Lessick, AHIP, FMLA, at ude.icu@kcissels. Susan Lessick, MA, MLS, AHIP, FMLA, ude.icu@kcissels, Librarian Emerita, Grunigen Medical Library, University of California, Irvine, 7468 East Calle Durango, Anaheim, CA 92808

Federated Search Engines for Online Journals: A Study

Search strategy in Information retrieval is important task to get proper results without wasting time. There were many developments in searching the articles or information from the internet. There are various search engines available to search e-journals, online databases. Federated search is new search technique to get one query with results from different online databases and online journals, etc. This paper made an attempt to identify the various tools available over the Internet.

Evaluation of Web Discovery Services: Reflections from Turkey

After the occurrence of Google and failure of federated search engines against Google, web discovery services appeared as a savior for libraries. Main importance of web discovery services is a google-like single search box, speed and comprehensiveness. This study aims an overview for web discovery services and analyzing the use and awareness of these services in Turkey. Web Discovery Services are used by 52 of the Turkish universities, 39 state universities and 13 private universities (August 2012). Ebsco Discovery Service (EDS) and Serial Solutions Summon are most commonly used discovery services in Turkey. EDS have 101 users (31 Universities, 3 Institutions, 1 Military Institution of Higher Education and 66 Ministry of Health Training and Research Hospitals), Summon have 21 users that all are universities. The other two discovery services, OCLC Worldcat Local, Encore Synergy and Primo Central don’t have any user in Turkey library market for now. According to the results of the conducted survey (February 2012) to all 160 higher education institutions in Turkey, 63 of the 74 respondents have information about web discovery services. About half of the 39 nonuser institutions attempted for using a discovery service.

E-Book Management: A Multiple Access Points Approach

Currently no dedicated electronic-books (e-books) management system exists that effectively and consistently searches across different e-book databases. The University of South Alabama Biomedical Library has explored multiple ways to improve accessibility to its e-book collection, including federated search engines, WorldCat Local QuickStart, an Electronic Resource Management system, the online catalog, and alphabetical/subject lists. Despite exploring numerous tools and approaches, biomedical librarians have yet to discover a single process to effectively and efficiently manage their e-book collection. Therefore, multiple methods are employed, including enabling title searches by uploading the e-book collection to Serials Solutions, listing e-books by subject and alphabetically, using WebFeat for cross-platform content searching, and employing location limits for e-books in the online catalog. Although requiring disparate tools and methods, a multiple access points approach has currently proven the best e-book management system for the Biomedical Library's patrons.

Requirements Elicitation and Planning of a Knowledge Portal: case Study of a Property Management Division in a Housing Organization

Enterprise knowledge portals offer, among other characteristics, a centralized access point for information as well as a wide range of tools and content for individual knowledge workers to personalize to suit their daily tasks. Such tasks often include the collection, aggregation, and analysis of data/information as well as collaborative work among workers to solve problems and make decisions. Leveraging on a quantitative–qualitative research approach including the use of a prior research instrument developed for the elicitation of requirements for collaboration tools, this paper seeks to identify the primary and secondary functions of a knowledge portal for knowledge workers in the property management division of a housing organization in Hong Kong. Although portals are often treated as a kind of stand‐alone enterprise knowledge management systems, proper planning and deployment of a portal with appropriate functionalities and a widely agreed content classification scheme can also help to enhance the navigation and presentation of knowledge assets in a knowledge‐leveraged organization. In particular, the introduction of a federated search engine can save considerable time in conducting (multiple) searches; selective Web 2.0 tools can help to foster collaborative work as well as help knowledge workers to reduce time spent on search but keep pace with nominated topics on a timely basis. Drawing on the existing literature as well as the authors' experience in working with many other organizations to deploy portals and relevant tools in the Asia Pacific, the initial recommendations are further consolidated to form a two‐phase deployment with the aim of enhancing the probability of success for the knowledge journey in the housing organization. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Mechanism Design for Federated Sponsored Search Auctions

Recently there is an increase in smaller, domain-specific search engines that scour the deep web finding information that general-purpose engines are unable to discover. These search engines play a crucial role in the new generation of search paradigms where federated search engines (FSEs) integrate search results from heterogeneous sources. In this paper we pose, for the first time, the problem to design a revenue mechanism that ensures profits both to individual search engines and FSEs as a mechanism design problem. To this end, we extend the sponsored search auction models and we discuss possibility and impossibility results on the implementation of an incentive compatible mechanism. Specifically, we develop an execution-contingent VCG (where payments depend on the observed click behavior) that satisfies both individual rationality and weak budget balance in expectation.

Quality Indicators for Depression Treatment in Primary Care: A Systematic Literature Review

Introduction: Depression is a mental disorder that is common and chronic, especially if it is initially undertreated. It is now widely recognized that primary care providers have an important role to play in the detection and treatment of depression. However, ensuring quality depression care remains a challenge. Quality indicators for the treatment of depression can help monitor the treatment received by people suffering from depression in primary care and guide improvements needed in that sector. Objectives: To systematically review indicators used to measure the quality of depression treatment in primary care and explore factors leading to divergent results. Method: The literature on the quality of depression treatment was reviewed using “360search”, a federated search engine for searching across multiple databases from a single interface. Databases searched included Pubmed, Embase and PsycINFO and keywords were depression, depressive disorder, quality, treatment, indicator, adequacy, adherence, concordance, clinical guideline and guideline. Additional articles were also identified through a manual search of the reference section of retrieved articles. Results: Though mostly based on recommendations from clinical practice guidelines, a great variety of indicators were observed. Most studies used rudimentary indicators to measure the quality of depression treatment, especially for psychotherapy. Studies also differed greatly with respect to the methods used, thus limiting the comparability of results. However, whatever the chosen method, most studies reveal that a large proportion of people with depression do not receive minimally adequate treatment in primary care settings. Conclusion: The implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed. Keywords: Adequacy of treatment, Depression, Clinical guideline, Primary care, Quality Indicator, Quality of care, psychotherapy, concordance, appropriate guideline adherence, conformance with evidence-based recommendations, treatment completion, drug dosage, antidepressants, cognitive-behavioral therapy, DSM

Science Accelerator.

The article reviews the web site Science Accelerator at http://www.scienceaccelerator.gov, a free web-based federated search engine that permits the user to search multiple databases of the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE).

Federated Search and the Library Web Site: A Study of Association of Research Libraries Member Web Sites

The purpose of this study was to investigate how federated search engines are incorporated into the Web sites of libraries in the Association of Research Libraries. In 2009, information was gathered for each library in the Association of Research Libraries with a federated search engine. This included the name of the federated search service and the presence, placement, and context of federated search boxes and links on library home pages, secondary pages, electronic resource lists, research guides, and course pages. Information was also gathered to compare whether the context of the federated search engine matched the resources included. During this study, a number of Web site redesigns affected how federated search engines were incorporated. A few of these site changes are described to illustrate the evolving nature of federated search engines on library Web sites. Building on a previous study, this study identified an increase in the number of libraries in the Association of Research Libraries with federated search engines. The findings also reveal a common problem of mismatching federated search context to the resources included, which has significant implications for users. Based on the observations of this study, a few best practices are provided to aid libraries in evaluating or reevaluating how federated search engines can be incorporated into their Web sites.

Contemporary World Music , and: Music Online (review)

Contemporary World Music. Alexander Street Press, 2009-. http://womu.alexanderstreet.com (Accessed March 2009 to September 2009). [Requires audio-enabled computer; Web browser and Internet connection of at least 56K bandwidth; Macromedia Flash Player version 7 and Windows Media Player version 10 (for Windows), Macromedia Flash Player version 7 (for Mac). Pricing: institutional subscription $896 to $4,496 per year depending on number of simultaneous users.] Online. Alexander Street Press, 2009-. http://muco.alexanderstreet.com (Accessed March 2009 to September 2009). Search engine for all Alexander Street Press databases. What is music and what is about the in Contemporary World that distinguishes it from others? Among the many naming possibilities considered by Alexander Street Press in the creation of the database (which included the very difficult-to-define Worldbeat) this probably the most appropriate, although it is not without problems. Ethnomusicologists with many years of fieldwork behind them could certainly be excused for casting a wary eye in 1987 on the adoption of the new genre, music, to be used in marketing records and CDs. It seemed paradoxically to seek a market for a that at once exotic, allowing listeners in the West to believe they were on an adventure, and at the same time familiar, the only way to guarantee that they would incorporate it into the formation of their own musical identities, and therefore buy the recordings. But this cynical view is eclipsed, I think, by a major shift in focus in the field of ethnomusicology itself through the 1970s and 1980s, one which moved from a view of expressing established and unchanging differences among the many cultures of the world to one of and culture continually being re-defined as people migrate and come into contact with each other. Mark Slobin observed this shift in 1993, noting that any essentialist analysis of will not hold and that interchange among small musics is rampant these days, and always was (Mark Slobin, Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West [Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1993], x). Not only did the new genres that constituted this modern definition of music illustrate these interchanges, but the marketing itself formed a part of the process, as so many more subcultural musics went global. While Alexander Street Press's earlier collection, Smithsonian Global Sound (reviewed in Notes 62, no. 3 [March 2006]: 776-80) could be seen as a useful documentation of many established musical traditions of the world, it could be argued that it failed to reflect the many changes that these traditions had undergone since their first documentation. CWM can be seen as an attempt by Alexander Street Press to answer this need. Their publication literature stresses the contemporary social forces addressed by music: Music does more than entertain. It helps us connect on the feeling level with people and their conditions. The songs in Contemporary World address issues of racism, fair trade, and poverty . . . social injustice . . . and religious freedom. Instructors of world history, geography, contemporary events, and other disciplines will use the to expand teaching. (http://alexanderstreet.com/products/womu.htm) This review will be devoted primarily to Contemporary World Music-hereafter CWM-as a database of streamed audio recordings, evaluating it for content and for its search interface. In addition I will devote some space to the Alexander Street Press federated search engine, Online, with particular respect to how it serves Contemporary World and related databases. Content There are, as of this writing, over 25,000 tracks of from more than 1,860 albums in CWM. Their stated target is 50,000 tracks, and by my calculations they have added around 12,000 tracks in the past six months. …