There are many things I’m still getting used to in terms of corporate vs. academic librarianship.  One of the differences is the types of information/current awareness sources that can sometimes be found in the corporate environment.  For example, I regularly read reports from Outsell, Inc. and find almost all of them very useful and instructive.  This is a source I had never heard of before I began work in a corporate library, and I don’t think most academic or public librarians are familiar with them, either.  I have been quite impressed with their analyses and think their analysts have a very good grasp on many of the current and future trends in library and information science.  On the (significant) downside, Outsell, Inc.’s reports are pricey.

The other day I received an electronic copy of their latest report, entitled “Information Management Best Practices: The Future of Federated Search.”  (An abstract is available here.)  The report discusses federated search; who are the players in this field; the differences between enterprise and what they term “open web” search.  Google is in the latter category. The report’s authors argue that due to basic differences in philosophies and approaches, it is unlikely that open web providers such as Google will make significant inroads into corporate search.  Their succinct but  — I think — accurate delineation of basic differences between open web and enterprise search was illuminating.  Another point that I found interesting was their discussion of survey results showing that more time in the past five years has been spent on adding more information into enterprise search, with less time spent on actually analyzing that information.  The report’s authors argue that federated search vendors haven’t much to fear from Google, and they go on to articulate why this is the case.  They see a good future for federated search.

If you can get access to this report, I think it’s worthwhile to read.  One of the things I find frustrating with reports like this is that yes, they articulate important trends for information management and are written in a highly palatable form, but in doing so, they tend to highlight the reality of what truly can be accomplished in, say, a corporate business environment.  Meaning, the reality is often far behind the vision or trends articulated in such reports.