Resumen
In this article, authors demonstrate how full-text retrieval can substitute for bibliographic metadata as a means of accessing large library collections. The New Zealand digital library aims to impose structure on anarchic and uncataloged repositories of information providing information consumers with effective tools to locate and peruse what they need. Their goal is to produce an easy-to-use digital library system that runs on computers at the information provider's own sites and offers a service that providers maintain. New Zealand's geographical isolation amplifies the benefits of networked digital libraries, in terms of cost and timeliness of access to information. To demonstrate how digital libraries can benefit diverse groups of users, they have built collections of publicly available information. Major differences between these collections include the source and format of information, updating policy, granularity of searching, different kinds of index, structure and format in which output is displayed, and provision of summaries of the collection's contents. The challenge is to enable information providers to tailor the system to new document sets without programming.