Building FLOW: Federating Libraries on the Web

Individuals, teams, organizations, and networks can be thought of as tiers or classes within the complex grid of technology and practice in which research documentation is both consumed and generated. The panoply of possible classes share with the others a common need for document management tools and practices. The distinctive document management tools and practices used within each represent boundaries across which information could flow openly if technology and metadata standards were to provide an accessible digital framework. The CERN Document Server (CDS), implemented by a research partnership at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), establishes a prototype tiered repository system for such a panoply. Research suggests modifications to enable cross-domain information flow and is represented as a metadata grid.