Efthimiadis, E.N. and Parodi, R. "BRUIN: Browsing and Retrieval of text and mUltimedia resources for Information retrieval education." In: Fox, E.A., Ingwersen, P. and Fidel, R. Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval. Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group for Information Retrieval, Seattle, WA, USA, July 9-13, 1995. pp.359-368; 360. [Abstract & demonstration]

The BRUIN prototype presents ideas for the implementation of a digital library as a resource for supporting information retrieval (IR) education.

BRUIN utililizes concept maps, based on the IR literature, such as the Belkin and Croft (ARIST, 1987) classification of retrieval techniques, to provide an overarching structure for the system as well as a visualization mechanism.

BRUIN uses different technologies, such as Web browsers (Mosaic, Netscape, etc.), graphics viewers, and retrieval engines, and integrates them under a common user interface.

The resources are accessed either by searching the database, or by using the concept map to enter the system and browse through the resources. Documents have hypertext links to other documents in the database and are linked through document clustering and citation linking. Documents contain also links to HTML documents (in-house and off-site), Powerpoint slides, graphics, other multimedia elements, screen captures of system displays, and URLs to systems that are mentioned in the database and are accessible on the Internet.