Federated Open Search Project

02 Feb 2007

CAN is participating in a Federated Open Search Project that aims to allow the public to search collection records from libraries, galleries, museums and archives all across Australia through a single search.

CAN has been an early implementor of the OpenSearch protocol. Our strategy is to host collection data for smaller institutions on our central database, while supporting distributed search access to larger institutions using the OpenSearch protocol.

The CAN implementation is now online. The National Library has also committed to implementing support for the OpenSearch protocol in both PictureAustralia and Libraries Australia.

As a result of these developments, it is now possible for anyone to search across the central CAN database, PictureAustralia and Libraries Australia in a single search. Furthermore, as larger museums, archives and galleries implement the OpenSearch protocol in their collection management systems, it should progressively become possible for anyone to search across the entire community of Australian collecting institutions.

The OpenSearch protocol is relatively easy to implement and provides a "lowest common denominator" simple keyword search that can be applied to discovery services in any sector including government and universities, as well as subject-related search services in a broad range of areas including health, scientific and statistical information.

You can access this search via the 'Online collections' link in the menu on the left-hand side of this page.

For further information on the Federated Search Project, follow the links below.

Related links