Most public and university libraries expose a public API for their catalogues (Z39.50). MkDru is an eminently themeable frontend to a system for searching them. And it can do dozens at a time: results are combined on the client side as they come in from each target, providing federated search as fast as your quickest source. It works out of the box, install the module, create a new search node and try it out! For a quick peek, we have a demo server too.
Your quickest source can be your own server as the underlying software supports SOLR indices. Naturally, if you're metasearching SOLR targets you can index anything you want and not just libraries. Combined with our web automation service, one enterprising bunch has even built emusik.dk to search their national library for music and include results from several streaming services alongside.
Specifics:
This module provides an interface for users to search one or more collections via a variety of protocols and peruse the combined results. One core application is searching library catalogues via Z39.50, a protocol for search queries against bibliographic information. The search UI is configured as a content type. This way you can make multiple search nodes, for example, one to search libraries in your city and another to search all the libraries in a region. Take a look at IRSpy to see which libraries provide their catalogs through this protocol.
The actual searching is done by a daemon called Pazpar2 that provides a web service. Since this module is a client of that service, it can search any targets exported by Pazpar2 which, in addition to Z39.50, include SRU/SRW and SOLR. The protocols are modular and Pazpar2 is GPL licensed so it would be straightforward to add more.
Beyond Pazpar2, Index Data also offers a commercial service to wrap web based search interfaces in a standard API for inclusion in metasearch and other applications. And we have a growing collection of connectors to libraries, archives and databases inaccessible by other means.
For more information please see the home page and for detailed installation instructions consult the documentation.
The module is developed by Index Data with funding from the Dansk BiblioteksCenter (DBC).
Project information
4 sites report using this module- Created by skomorokh on , updated
Stable releases for this project are covered by the security advisory policy.
There are currently no supported stable releases.
