Patent ID: 6886047

Claim:
A system for managing information retrievals from distributed archive facilities, at least one of the distributed archive facilities including an analog archive, the system comprising: a messaging layer providing access to each of the distributed archives; a user interface layer providing communication links to a plurality of users; and an archive access manager coupled to the messaging layer and coupled to the user interface layer, the archive access manager comprising: an application interface manager coupled to the user interface layer, the application interface manager providing input and output services with respect to users of the system, the application interface manager determining the distributed archive where the requested information is stored, including determining if the requested information is in the analog archive, a core processing block coupled to the application interface manager, the core processing block managing requests for information retrievals and formatting retrieved information, and an archive information manager coupled to the core processing block and coupled to the messaging layer, the archive information manager transmitting the requests for information retrievals to the distributed archives and receiving the retrieved information from the distributed archives.