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We describe the conceptual architecture of a Personalized Information Environment or\PIE". A PIE allows uni ed, highly customizable access to distributed information resources by providing users the tools to compose personalized collections from a palette of information resources. The architecture also provides for the e cient\exchange" of inter-resource metainformation like collection statistics in order to maximize retrieval e ectiveness. This paper includes the enunciation of the user-centered PIE vision, an architectural requirements specication, and an architectural description that meets the speci cation and supports the vision. We also describe our current implementation and research e orts conducted within the PIE framework.

In 1945, Vannevar Bush 2] rst described an information environment that he felt was bordering on the unmanageable, with information users awash in research results and scholarly communication and few usable mechanisms to organize them. Bush felt that current mechanisms for dealing with information were wholly inadequate given the volume of work being produced: