Well, it depends. Are you having performance problems with a database solution? If not, why in the world would you want to introduce another layer of complexity?
Personally, while I think Lucene is great, I wouldn't recommend it in the situation you describe unless you are having problems with the database solution. 10,000 records shouldn't make any reasonable database even start to breathe hard, unless you're using it in ways that don't readily come to my mind. And if you are having performance issues, the first thing I'd do is look at making my database use more efficient. This assumes you *need* a database. If you are just searching records (and not joining across tables etc.), then you might think about forgetting the database all together and just using Lucene. But I can't stress enough that introducing solution that requires both a DB and Lucene just to be "more efficient" is a bad idea. It's may be a good thing if you are solving a real problem, but not an abstract "it would just be better" problem. And in either case, a dual solution shouldn't be approached until after you've made sure your problem is not just mis-use of the tool you're using. Best Erick