The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has been working for some time on an initiative it calls "metasearch" which speaks to a spectrum of federated searching requirements. They are seeking participation in moving that work foward; below, I have reproduced a call for participation from Pat Stevens, the Chair of the NISO SDC.

Clifford Lynch
Director, CNI

FROM:  Pat Stevens, Chair of the NISO Standards Development Committee

DATE: January 16, 2004

On  behalf of NISO I am pleased to announce that we have formed the leadership team that will take the NISO Metasearch Initiative forward.   Jenny Walker of Ex Libris (USA) Inc. and Andrew Pace of North Carolina State University  will jointly lead the overall planning.    Because the Metasearch environment involves several interrelated strands, NISO is forming three task groups on the following topics:  Access Management, Collection Description, and Search/Retrieve.  The leaders of the task groups will work with Jenny and Andrew as the planning body for the overall initiative.

The following people have agreed to lead the task groups:

*Access Management-Mike Teets, OCLC
*Collection Description-Juha Hakala, National Library of Finland
*Search/Retrieve-Sara Randall, Endeavor Information Systems and Matt Goldner, Fretwell-Downing Informatics

We have placed the initial descriptions of the charges for these groups on <http://www.niso.org/committees/MS-task_groups.html#1>the NISO web site <http://www.niso.org/committees/MS-task_groups.html#1> for those of you who are interested in participating. If you'd like to be a part of this effort please sign-on. To join a Task Group send an email message to: nisohq@niso.org indicating your interest. In the subject line state: Metasearch.  In the body of the message please tell us about your expertise and interest in the topic and provide your contact points.

Thanks to all of you who have expressed an interest in participating. Many of you responded to the last notice.  We would appreciate your confirming that you remain interested.

I know that I can count on all of you to provide the support necessary to move this important work forward.

Pat Stevens
Director, Cooperative Initiatives OCLC
Chair, NISO Standards Development Committee
Email:  stevens@oclc.org
Telephone:  614-764-6406 ** Mobile: 240-432-8531 ** Fax: 614-764-1640