Using Autobiographic Information to Retrieve Real and Electronic Documents

Current systems force users to store their documents in hierarchic filesystems. However, users remember their documents not in terms of ad-hoc categories, but of their contents, why they were written, etc. Describing documents using such autobiographic information would be a simpler and more effective way for users to retrieve them. Furthermore, we found that users mention printed versions of documents when retrieving them. However, current systems don’t regard the printed and electronic versions of a document as facets of the same entity. To solve these problems we developed an interface that allows users to browse their autobiographic information, gathered by a specialpurpose monitoring subsystem, to retrieve their documents. We bridged the gap between the real and electronic worlds by maintaining the association between paper and electronic documents resorting to RFID technology. Tests show our interface allows users to efficiently retrieve their documents.