These are important interim steps to smooth the transition to on- line information, but they remind me of Gutenberg's fonts, which were designed to mimic manuscript. Searching may be the most confusing of all the topics in digital libraries. Some of the confusion comes from a clash of personalities, between the traditions of cataloguing and indexing, and the optimism of researchers in natural language processing. However, the issues are more fundamental. One important issue is that information is changing.
Electronic information is more like software than traditional publication.
Attempts to index and manage software by traditional library methods have been largely unsuccessful. Another issue is the cost of managing an ever increasing volume of material. Until recently, successful search systems involved human cataloging, indexing, or abstracting. These are expensive activities. Some crucial funding comes from the government, notably through the Library of Congress and the National Library of Medicine.