An experimental service to demonstrate the cross searching capabilities of ROADS databases. One of the objectives of the DESIRE project is to investigate distributed databases and the creation of national gateways. As part of this work the Koninklijke Bibliotheek have set up an experimental ROADS based subject gateway for Dutch Arts and Social Sciences Resources for the purpose of cross searching geographically dispersed databases. The demonstrator is an index server which allows combined searches of three information gateways: SOSIG (Social Science Information Gateway), Biz/ed (Business Education on the Internet) and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek Dutch Desire Demonstrator for the Arts and Social Sciences.

Traditionally cross searching is carried out by querying each database in turn and combining the results for the user. The DESIRE demonstrator index server consults a locally held centroid (or index) of each of the three databases which provides some "forward knowledge" about the information contained in the databases. The index server decides which of the databases contain information that matches the query, passes on the query to each database that has matching entries and collates the results for the end user.

Please Note: The demonstrator is for experimental purposes only and is not an operational service.