An Application Framework for Distributed Information Retrieval

To date, the adoption of content-based Distributed Information Retrieval (DIR) solutions within the domain of Digital Libraries (DL) remains rather limited. We contend that the lack of open application frameworks is a major obstacle. Not only to the rapid development and reuse of state-of-the art DIR functionality, but also to the holistic evaluation of competing DIR approaches. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of one such framework; as well as its use within the context of the DILIGENT infrastructure: a testbed of dedicated hardware, middleware and application services built explicitly for the DL domain upon the lower-level facilities of the first European GRID platform (EGEE). We conclude with a summary of future plans for its large scale deployment, testing and evaluation within this context.