From heterogeneous information spaces to virtual documents

This paper introduces DoMDL, a powerful and flexible document model capable to represent multi-edition, structured, multimedia documents that can be disseminated in multiple manifestation formats. This model also allows any document to be associated with multiple metadata descriptions in different formats and to include semantic relationships with other documents and parts of them. The paper discusses also how the OpenDLib Digital Library Management System exploits this model to abstract from the specific organization and structure of the documents that are imported from different heterogeneous information sources in order to provide virtual documents that fulfill the needs of the different DL user communities.