Information retrieval in distributed systems is currently subject to scientific discussions and researches. The following paper describes general issues and technical possibilities to be considered for data description, search and retrieval. It focuses on the role of retrieval for archives and presents the architecture for data description, search and retrieval in the distributed archival system Distarnet.
Simon Margulies, Ivan Subotic, Lukas Rosenthaler, "Archiving, Data Description and Retrieval in a Distributed System" in Proc. IS&T Archiving 2006, 2006, pp 219 - 224, https://doi.org/10.2352/issn.2168-3204.2006.3.1.art00050