Many of the next generation OPAC products claim to be a single interface to everything. Since that's also the claim of federated search products, it's worth while to examine this claim a little closer to see how it is accomplished.
When we dig a little deeper into the product literature, we see that these next gen discovery products are actually handing off to a federated search product (in addition to searching the records imported into the internal database). This hand-off may be integrated into a single search, or it may be accomplished via searching in another search box and/or tab of the next gen OPAC user interface.
"So what?" one might ask. This is significant because:
1) for that portion of the search, it reverts back to the lowest common denominator search of the federated search engine, and
2) there are serious issues with integrating the results returned by the federated search product with the results returned by the internal database.
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You can see this elucidated in an Ex Libris sponsored Primo blurb in a Computers in Libraries insert where they state that "Local library data, such as the library catalog, digital collections, and course management systems, is harvested and indexed through the Primo publishing platform. Remote resources, seamlessly discovered via the Ex Libris MetaLib premier metasearch solution, complement local data. Integrated with Primo, MetaLib provides a coherent, one-stop information environment."
For another example, see AquaBrowser's All your content in a single query description which shows a "Federated Engine" in the graphic and mentions "Federated Sources" in the list of the kinds of information that can be exposed.
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