THE FULL MONTY; OR, THE WHOLE HOG WITH HERMES

A solution to reduce user frustration with multiple databases, confusing interfaces, bewildering query languages, assorted search protocols, and differing results formats. We present Hermes, a tool designed to integrate information resources, from searching in disparate bibliographic databases, to accessing the full text articles online via one seamless common interface. Hermes aims to reduce some of the artificial boundaries that exist in the information space, the barriers between user need and gratification. The system has been developed in Perl, on a Linux platform and includes a MySQL database. At the present it searches 12 bibliographic databases on three different platforms and delivers results from more than 6,000 full text electronic journals. We also discuss the obstacles which exist for the development of this kind of tool, due to the lack of acceptance and implementation of standards, and we propose new utilities that could enrich these types of tools, if the standards are implemented.