A Public Digital Library based on Full-Text Retrieval: Collections and Experience

The NZDL aims to impose structure on anarchic and uncataloged repositories of information, providing information consumers with effective tools to locate and peruse what they need. Our goal is to produce an easy-to-use digital library system that runs on inexpensive computers at information providers’ own sites and offers an information service that information providers themselves maintain. New Zealand’s geographical isolation magnifies the benefits of networked digital libraries, in terms of both cost and timeliness of access to information. We are collaborating with the Medoc project in Germany to provide local indexes to German language technical-reports, and with the J Biological Chemistry in the United States to field-test novel browsing techniques.