Metasearch questions

One of the objectives on the IMLS DCC project is to explore ways to more effectively integrate the metadata records we harvest from libraries, museums and archives with other digital content resources. We especially are striving to bridge the gap between primary source digitized content (most of the metadata we aggregate describes such content) and related secondary resources available in digital format (e.g., contemporary journal literature on the same or related topics, much of which is licensed). We are exploring a variety of tools and services that can facilitate this process, with particular attention to metasearch technologies. We’d be especially interested in your advice on how to make further advances in our research on this front.

So far, building on prior UIUC Library metasearch research and applications – e.g., our EasySearch application (see:
http://search.grainger.uiuc.edu/searchaid/easy_search_summary.html), we have added limited metasearch functionality to our Opening History portal
(http://imlsdcc.grainger.uiuc.edu/history/). On this portal when you do an item level search, we return search results for your query from Academic Search Premier, America: History and Life, (Elsevier) Scopus, and Google Book (when not blocked). A few specific issues on which we’d appreciate your comments:

1.    What other targets would be relevant for us to pull in through metasearch? Especially those indexing digital secondary sources relevant to the portal’s topic thrust (American history). We’re also very interested in other portals, repositories, or resources recognized in various communities, e.g., museums and historical societies covering American history, which we might be able to tap (even if we have to do some screen scraping).

2.    Should we consider adding metasearch functionality at other levels of the portal – e.g., to allow users looking at full records to do metasearches not of their original query, but of terms and indexing in found records?

3.     Beyond standards-based Z39.50, SRU/SRW, and XML Gateway implementations of metasearch functionality, what other similar kinds of services should we be looking to exploit?

4.    Should we look at making our metadata aggregation a metasearch target for other portals? Again are there existing portals in this domain that seek to exploit resources like ours. If so, which metasearch service protocols would be most critical and how might we register or otherwise advertise availability?

5.    What else, in terms of the services we support or exploit, should we be looking at to improve our integration with other relevant digital repositories and portals?