Using xSearch for Accelerating Research‐Review of Deep Web Technologies Federated Search Service

Developed by Deep Web Technologies (DWT) (<http://www.deepWebtech.com/>) in consultation with the Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources, xSearch (<http://xsearch.stanford.edu>) is a locally named and customized version of DWT's federated search service that can search 170+ resources at one time. (Explorit is the commercial version of Deep Web Technology's federated search solution which Stanford has locally branded as xSearch.) In addition to the broad range of resources searched, xSearch provides an intuitive interface for searching, refining, and displaying results. The ability to choose the resources searched allows this tool to be used by researchers as well as undergraduates. Speed is enhanced by the fact that some results are displayed before the search is completed. Users are able to easily set up alerts from their search results. Both library staff and users are able to create custom search pages that can be a link on a Web page or embedded as a search box in a research or course guide. xSearch has provided a scalable, cost-effective, and robust solution for meeting a wide variety of information needs.