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Federated Search: New Option for Libraries in the Digital Era Shailendra Kumar Gareema Sanaman Namrata Rai Abstract The article describes the concept of federated searching and demarcates the difference between metasearching and federated searching which are synonymously used. Due to rapid growth of scholarly information, need of federated searching arises. Advantages of federated search have been described along with the search model indicating old search model and federated search model. Various technologies used for federated searching have been discussed. While working with search, the selection of federated search engine and how it works in libraries and other institutions are explained. Article also covers various federated search providers and at the end system advantages and drawbacks in federated search have been listed. Keywords: Federated Search, Meta Search, Google Scholar, SCOPUS, XML, SRW 1. Introduction In the electronic information environment one of the responses to the problem of bringing large amounts of information together has been for libraries to introduce portals. A portal is a gateway, or a point where users can start their search for information on the web. There are a number of different types of portals, for example universities have been introducing “institutional portals”, which can be described as “a layer which aggregates, integrates, personalizes and presents information, transactions and applications to the user according to their role and preferences” (Dolphin, Miller & Sherratt, 2002). A second type of portal is a “subject portals”. A third type of portal is a “federated search tool” which brings together the resources to a library subscribes and allows cross-searching of these resources. They work using the Z39.50 protocol used by database suppliers to enable communication between computers. This protocol is not always effective because database suppliers have not always adopted it consistently so other protocols are also used such as HTML, XML and SQL (Lewis, 2002). Since these tools access resources that the library pays for, some type of authentication is required to ensure. Well before the launch of the World Wide Web, librarians recognized the need for establishing a common interface to search multiple sources. The ANSI/NISO gives the international search-andretrieval protocol, Z39.50, which was originally proposed in 1984 as a standard means of interrogating bibliographic databases. Since then it has gone through three versions, the latest of which was issued in 1995. Federated search compliments the Z39.50 facility, it offers the ability to extend search beyond the online catalog virtually to any electronic resources that can be authenticated at the point of access. This means that users no longer need to jump from one search interface to another.