Such a structure is represented in fig 1. Each provider's resource base is made up of some indexing information about resources and optionally any electronically representable resources that the provider wishes to supply. A provider may index their own or other's resources, they may also reference another provider's indexing information. The indexing information is provided by topics. A topic represents a particular subject area.
Subject areas can be anything general, specific, material or abstract.
Topics contain text describing the subject area and may additionally contain references to related topics or resources. For example a topic on Queen Victoria may reference another topic on kings and queens of England, another provider's topic on Queen Victoria, or a resource such as a picture of Queen Victoria. The text contained in a topic is held in one or more nuggets. The first nugget acts as a title, and is used as a short hand way of referring to a particular topic. This nugget should therefore be kept as short as possible while remaining meaningful.