database connections and presenting data on the web

We are trying to determine the best solution for a web based
application. We have 13 databases (separate postmaster for each
database) that we need to retrieve data from in order to produce the web
page.  This data is changing on a regular basis.  Question is:

1. Do we:

     for database in 1-13;do
         connect database
         retrieve data
         disconnect database
     done
     display data

2. Or, do we have a common table for all databases that a daemon keeps
updated and simply pull the data from that table?

The data that's being retrieved is changing literally by the minute.

The cgi code is perl.

--
Until later, Geoffrey

"I predict future happiness for America if they can prevent
the government from wasting the labors of the people under
the pretense of taking care of them."
- Thomas Jefferson