Appendix. Analysis of Federated Search Product Features

Feature	One Search	PowerSearch Plus	WebFeat Express
Resource Discovery
Number of clicks to federated results	1 or 2 (sometimes necessary to click “get results” to return all federated results)	(1) Submit query in standard Power Search interface (2) Click in "additional databases" tab to start federated (Plus) function.	(1) User must select at least one resource group to search (2) submit query
User selection of resources to search? Limit?	Yes, click to select or deselect listed configured databases.	Yes, but click to see selected databases. Also, one searches all available Gale DB's or none, no choices among them.	Yes, Subject groups are configurable, which creates tailored groups of databases for different subjects, grade levels, etc.
Configurable default set?	Yes, default set	Yes, default set	Yes, any number of sets

Feature	One Search	PowerSearch Plus	WebFeat Express
Resource Discovery
Single search box available to place on any webpage?	No	Yes, but for the basic PowerSearch interface, not the federated part	Yes, any number of differently preconfigured search box codes may be generated and used in webpages.
Limit of number of databases configured			50
Limit number of databases searched			50
OPAC Search?	Yes, Integral	No, (not yet?)	Yes

Feature	One Search	PowerSearch Plus	WebFeat Express
Query
Pull down Boolean operator "advanced" search available?	Yes	Not in the federated function, regular PowerSearch only	Yes
Single search box?	Yes	Yes	Yes, basic, but with pull down choice of keyword (def.), title author, subject, all
Any limiters available?	No	Refining after initial search results	Publication date (year) range, full text
Home authentication?	Yes	Yes, once	Yes, once
Browsing
Initial results shown?	Yes	No	Yes
Indicator of progress?	Yes, but doesn't always indicate that the search is complete	Yes	Yes

Feature	One Search	PowerSearch Plus	WebFeat Express
Browsing Results
Errors displayed?	Follett errors are displayed	No	No
Can results be refined? How? Type of doc, source, pub., keyword, date etc.	No refining—results are presented as they are retrieved	By source, by keyword, by date	No refining
Can results be ordered/sorted? How? Is there relevancy ranking?	No manipulation of results	Results are clustered in a visual map or outline presentation view. Relevancy ranking based source rankings	Grouped by source by default or sorted by title author date, cluster, or relevancy
Characterize brief description of item	Almost complete citation: graphic previews, title, author, journal, volume, issue, page, issn, full text PDF or HTML, reading level. Description for encyclopedia entries.	Default view shows title, URL, and source, more detail shows author and rank in addtition, less detail show only title.	Title, author, journal, pub date, database source, sometimes description of work, graphic previews if available, or subj. headings depending on source.

Feature	One Search	PowerSearch Plus	WebFeat Express
Browsing Results
Is more info available? from target source? Or within metadata?	Link to actual item	Selectable detail "more, less, or normal,” & link to actual item	Link to actual item
Any clustering or catagorizing of results?	No—by source only	Clustering (visual or outline) & relevance by Grokker	Yes, clustering and relevance
Indication of full text?	Yes	No, but didn’t return non–full-text articles	Yes
Can results be ordered/sorted? How? Is there relevancy ranking?	No manipulation of results	Results are clustered in a visual map or outline presentation view. Relevancy ranking based source rankings	Grouped by source by default or sorted by title author date, cluster, or relevancy

Feature	One Search	PowerSearch Plus	WebFeat Express
Retrieval
Any partial retrievals? Items found vs. items retrieved? Are they updated?	Difficult to verify. One sometimes has to click the get results button to get results, but ostensibly, it may still have been gathering results.	If a query to a database is not retrieved quickly enough, it will time out retrieving fewer or no results.	No
How are very large sets of hits handled?	Lists number of results available	Retrieves total of 100, 200, or 300 results (200 default) from all databases queried	Shows total number available, immediately retrieves only first set.
number of items retrieved limit?	No	If total is 200 and 5 sources are selected each can retrieve a max of 40	No
E-mail results	No	Yes link	Yes, citation info, but no link or even database source description

Feature	One Search	PowerSearch Plus	WebFeat Express
Retrieval
Save/export results?	Can save to a list if user is logged into destiny as a user.	Book mark, or post to del.icio.us	Yes, as RIS file or direct export to RIS Format file (ProCite, EndNote, Reference Manager
Generate citations	Citations can be generated in destiny from lists. No specific format.	No	No
Services to other systems?	No	Post to del.icio.us	Direct export to RIS Format file (ProCite, EndNote, Reference Manager
User workspace?	If user logs in and creates lists	No	No