[Sigia-l] Best Bets - a Federated Search?

[Eric Scheid]

Is Best Bets an example of a federated search system?

At first, I thought yes. They are presented in the same segmented manner 
that federated searches usually are, and they could be implemented on the 
backend as two distinct databases ... yet ultimately they point to the 
same destination as the raw index searches. In a way this is akin to 
meta-search, where some of the search sources cover only a niche  (eg. 
biomed, or Los Angeles blogs). And yet, in my gut this doesn't sit quite 
right.

Anyone care to shed some light on this - are there formal definitions 
(eg. taught in LIS) for Federated Search?

Would Yahoo's inclusion of results from it's directory along with the 
wider "internet search" be considered a best bets search example?

e.

______________________________________________________________________
eric at ironclad.net.au                 i r o n c l a d   n e t w o r k s
information architect                      http://www.ironclad.net.au/