JILL KONIECZKO

Director of Library Services and Data Research at U.S.News & World Report

At U.S.News, our end-users have access to over 70 databases, from LexisNexis and ProQuest to the Community of Science and the whole suite of Yellow Book directories. End-user access provides them with authoritative content from reliable sources, but it can be daunting, and time consuming for end-users to search in and around 70 databases, especially since each requires a different syntax and offers different interfaces; consequently, we don't always see the usage we need to ensure appropriate return on our (significant) investments. Employing a federated search helps us to achieve both objectives -- our end-users are able to easily navigate through multiple services using a common search syntax and interface, and we see greater ROI, having spent significant money on a variety of otherwise under-used databases.

Federated Search ROI@

U.S.News & World Report

To librarians, access to over 70 databases is like being a kid in a candy store – to an end-user, it’s

TMI!

Why employ a federated search?

• Research shows that searching authoritative, but fee-ba$ed, services, such as LexisNexis and EBSCO, yield better information than searching the free Web.– Already grappling with an infoglut, our end-users don’t

typically employ more sophisticated search syntax, resulting in poor search hits

• Database subscriptions account for 75% of the Library’s (shrinking) budget.– We need to demonstrate quantitative and qualitative

ROI so as to provide rationale for subscription renewals.

Accessible via the Library’s Intranet, the

federated search – which crawls Web-accessible

content, 3rd party licensed content, and our own content – helps end-

users to more quickly gain access to better information … saving

them time and increasing their efficiencies, and helps us to justify the

expense of subscription-based services