Discovery channels

One of the casualties of the UKDA moving from a Unix system supporting INGRES to a Microsoft environment using SQLserver was the BIRON search system. It was decided to replace it with a simple Google type search interface based on siteserver indexes. With Microsoft no longer supporting siteserver, along with the new requirements of the ESDS specialist services and internal demands for more powerful tools, the UKDA decided to review its resource discovery options. This paper discusses the relative merits and resource implications of using SQL fulltext indexes, z39.50, OAI and web harvesters. The presentation will include demonstrations of the more powerful and advanced searches now available.