External views of the Portal

I thought this comment (found via a link from Lorcan) was worth quoting as a possible slide in future presentations.

I’ve written about the value of enhancing federated search by providing contextual information and I’m happy to see Cambridge University wholeheartedly embracing this idea.

The portal includes these components:

* The ability to drill down to particular subject areas
* Subject-specific federated search pages that access Scopus and CrossSearch
* A page of links to databases, full text archives and other resources for each subject area
* A search engine for Cambridge University journals, by subject area
* A search engine for Cambridge University books
* Detailed context sensitive information for libraries related to each subject area
* Online chat with librarians
* RSS feeds to news articles
* Other useful links, by subject

I reported briefly in May how Cambridge University acquired federated search software and now we all get to see how they’ve built onto it. I’m very impressed at how Cambridge University has packed a wealth of useful services into a well thought out portal that is very friendly to students. I think the Cambridge portal will serve as a model for sophisticated yet simple search portals for some time to come.