Patent ID: 7209922

Claim:
A method of organizing information regarding raw data stored on a local or remote data store, comprising: a. providing access to raw data to a computer being used by a computer system user, the raw data resident on either a local or remote data store, the raw data comprising at least one of (i) a text data file, (ii) a graphics data file, (iii) an audio data file, (iv) a video data file, (v) a universal resource locator (URL) associated with the raw data, or (vi) a link to a data file associated with raw data, the raw data further being stored at least one of (i) locally to a computer being used by the computer system user or (ii) remotely from the computer being used by the computer system user; b. providing software comprising a user interface on the computer being used by the computer system user; c. capturing a description of the raw data in a record of an authority table associated with a user searchable database accessible to the computer system user, the description sufficient to provide a link to the raw data; d. capturing a portion of the raw data into the user searchable database sufficient for text searching of the raw data; e. accepting an arbitrary synopsis of the raw data entered by the computer system user to enter an arbitrary synopsis of the raw data; f. associating that synopsis with the raw data; g. obtaining a single list of descriptions and synopses captured in the database via the user interface from the captured portion of the raw data by the computer system user; h. selectively retrieving raw data from the raw data stored locally or remotely by the computer system user using the single list of descriptions; and i. presenting the selectively retrieved raw data to the computer system user.