Can I search all databases simultaneously?

Previous versions of BookWhere featured hard coded Database Groups called ‘Favourites’ and ‘All Databases’ . When BookWhere was originally designed there were only about 200 database targets available. Now with over 2800 databases available for searching the concept of dispatching a search to all 2800 is not only a waste of those servers resources but also a practical issue for a single PC to accomplish; i.e. having the memory and processing capability to open, process and close 2800 discrete network connections. BookWhere is certainly capable of the work, but you should be sure your PC has the resources to be able to accomplish such a task.

Under BookWhere 5.0 there are two steps involved in being able to search ALL or at least a very large number of databases. You may wish to have this option for those difficult-to-find items.

1. Configure BookWhere to be able to search more than the default 250 databases at a time. Follow the instructions found under Choose Database Selection Limit to set a larger value such as 3000.


2. Use the Choose Databases dialog to present a complete list of all of the databases desired.
   1. Click on enter more filter options… to eliminate any access controlled databases from the list as well as any databases that are not responding.
   
   
   
   
   2. Enter keywords in the Keyword(s) field to limit the list of databases that render suitable types of records. e.g. enter MARC21 ALA to ensure that database that offer this type of MARC record and ALA character encoding if this matches your library system’s requirements.
   
   
   
   
   3. In the Choose Databases dialog:
   1. Click on the first database in the list.
   2. Scroll down and WHILE PRESSING the SHIFT key, click on the last library in the list.
   3. Release the SHIFT key and ‘right-mouse click’ over the selected libraries.
   4. Select Add to Group–>New Group, and give it a name like All Databases.
   
   
   
   
   4. After several seconds (depending on speed of your computer) you can scroll to the top of the databases list and see the new group, which can be selected and used in searches.
   
   
   
   

Note: Searching ‘All Databases’ can lead to significant loads on your CPU as well as all of these resources and should normally be used only as a last resort for difficult-to-find materials. To minimize the impact on database servers, try to use precise key searches such as ISBN or LCCN and avoid complex boolean queries. If during the progress of an All Databases search a suitable record is retrieved, click the Stop Search button on the toolbar to notify all Databases to stop the searches they may still have running. This just ensures that resources are not being wasted performing useless searches. The Stop Search will take a few minutes to notify all databases, please be patient.