MIDS: a framework for information organization and discovery

The MITRE Information Discovery System (MIDS) is a baseline system for integrating advanced processing tools for information discovery and retrieval in large-scale distributed environments. The system is built on a modular, extendible architecture that allows for system-level decoupling and allocation of component processing tools across network nodes to provide for efficient processing in distributed environments. At one level, the system provides for multi-platform user access to HTTP, Gopher, FTP, and news servers using an HTML based client interface. However, more significantly, the system provides advanced tools for metadata generation from disparate network objects, and a content routing mediation layer for classification of metadata into appropriate information brokers. This bottom-up layered information organization approach supports a wide range of information retrieval and browsing strategies.