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Searching Digital Libraries

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Encyclopedia of Database Systems

Synonyms

Federated search

Definition

Searching digital libraries refers to searching and retrieving information from remote databases of digitized or digital objects. These databases may hold either the metadata for an object of interest (e.g., author and title), or a complete object such as a book or a video.

Historical Background

The initial efforts to standardize and facilitate searching of digital libraries date back to the 1970s, when the development of the Z39.50 protocol started. The Z39.50 protocol is an ANSI standard and defines how to search and retrieve items from a remote database catalog. The Z39.50 protocol was widely deployed within library environments, allowing users to perform searches to remote libraries.

With the advent of the Web, libraries started digitizing and making contents available on the Web, and the Z39.50 protocol started losing its importance. Many libraries made their content “searchable” through standard Web forms, allowing users to search and retrieve...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Panagiotis G. Ipeirotis

Authors
  1. Panagiotis G. Ipeirotis
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 266 Ferst Drive, 30332-0765, Atlanta, GA, USA

    LING LIU (Professor) (Professor)

  2. Database Research Group David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. TAMER ÖZSU (Professor and Director, University Research Chair) (Professor and Director, University Research Chair)

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© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Ipeirotis, P.G. (2009). Searching Digital Libraries. In: LIU, L., ÖZSU, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_327

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