1 Access to Italian legal literature: integration between structured repositories and web documents

The problems of accessing legal information and, in particular, legal literature are examined in conjunction with the creation of a portal to Italian legal doctrine. The design and implementation of services such as integrated access to a wide range of resources are described, with a focus on the importance of exploiting metadata assigned to disparate legal material. On the basis of the results of a survey of legal users ’ requirements, the main features of the planned system are presented: accurate selection of resources, user profiling and assistance in the search process, reliance on rich and consistent metadata, navigation facilities for legal literature, legislation and case-law sources. The strategies devised have been experimented, such a