Developing intelligent information retrieval systems - issues in database organization, distributed processing, and interface design

Computer-based bibliographic search systems have received considerable attention in recent times. Despite advances made in computer technology in various fields including object-oriented databases, client-server based distributed computing, and hypermedia based interfaces, mechanisms to support the organization and retrieval of information remain inflexible and hard to use. In this paper, we present our methodology in developing an intelligent information retrieval system in the context of the Wright State University (WSU) library. We present an overview of an electronic search system featuring a hypermedia interface on a world wide web server. We also discuss the salient issues of this ongoing project with respect to related research on internet support tools, intelligent intermediaries, digital libraries, and user interfaces.