MIT 9904-08 Haystack : Per-User Information Environments
The Haystack project is investigating the ways in which electronic infrastructure can be used to triangulate among the different knowledges of an individual, of collegial communities to which we belong, and of the world at large. Its infrastructure consists of a community of independent, interacting information repositories, each customized to its individual user. It provides automated data gathering (through active observation of user activity), customized information collection, and adaptation to individual query needs. It also facilities inter-haystack collaboration, exposing (public subsets of) the tremendous wealth of individual knowledge that each of us currently has locked up in our personal information spaces. The Haystack-NTT project involves augmenting its customization, learning and adaptation, and inter-haystack communication.