Handling Complex Information Environments: A Multi-Agent Framework

The enormous amount of information available electronically, combined with the wide range of methods for information retrieval and manipulation, produces a complex electronic information environment that may be difficult for users to exploit. This paper summarizes how motivations and issues for a multiagent approach to information retrieval are addressed in our multi-agent system called Calvin. Calvin observes users while they are accessing documents, proactively finds related documents, and provides a unified interface to the information environment. Calvin’s agents individually implement high level abstractions of parts of the information retrieval task, integrating information from disparate sources. Calvin is built on top of a new Java middle-ware system called Geneva, a general multi-agent system framework which provides the resources necessary for supporting personal information retrieval. This paper gives an overview of how Geneva and Calvin address key issues for AOIS and shows how personal information agents can benefit from the open, flexible environment of a multi-agent system approach.