At NPAC, we are building Enterprise Information Systems by integrating
RDBMS technology into Web systems. One of such systems currently
under prototyping is an mail-based information retrieval system, 
to be able to support searchable USENET newsgroups archive, mailing lists
archive and personal mailbox archive. Using Oracle 7 database server as backend search 
engine in the WWW environment, various infomration entities can
be easily managed and quickly retrieved via SQL-based queries which are
accessible from a WWW form-based interface. Mails in the database are
always kept up-to-date and consistent. On the other hand, a WWW interface provides a 
universal/global mechnism and a uniform GUI search interface to the
centralized data repository, regardles of platforms, locations and times.
Any security technique developed on HTTP protocol can be used in the
system to ensure secure access and information protection.
This system provides a powerful archive and search capability to the
<Sandia project title> system proposed by Sandia.

Currently we have a USENET newsgroups and mailin lists archive in full
production, freely accessible on Internet. For detailed
information about the functionality of this system, please visit
<URL:http://asknpac.npac.syr.edu>.