Grid Information Retrieval (GIR, or GridIR) is a specification for general-purpose, interoperable, distributed 
information retrieval, using the computational grid, specifically OGSA, as a common platform.  The architecture 
described in this document seeks to address the requirements stated in GWD-R/draft-ggf-gir-requirements (the GridIR "
requirements document"), and proposes a model for distributed IR that draws from and builds on previous efforts toward 
IR interoperability.  The architecture distributes the processes of creating and querying IR systems, and the systems 
themselves are federated and may be entirely decentralized.  This paper outlines the architecture of GridIR.
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