search request can be fulfilled, and then the BNode routes it there. When the location of the content is known, e.g. as a result of the query, the BNode is directly contacted. BNode A BNode could be seen as a set of services that are required to manage an institution's presence in the system, and to provide services for the rest of the community. A BNode consists of three types of components: fundamental, core, and basic Bricks. Most of them are standard Web services, described by Web Services Description Language documents and registered with a UDDI compatible repository used also for discovering appropriate services. Since the BNode architecture is service-based, a BNode installation can be spread on more than one machine at the installation site. In such cases fundamental Bricks are needed on every machine that is part of the local installation, and core and basic Bricks can be present only on some machines. As their name suggests, core Bricks provide core system functionalities to users, i.e. a minimal set of services that enables users to use the system. On the other side, basic Bricks are optional and they must not be present on every installation site. Services run within a Web-service framework that provides: service deployment or undeployment, service invocation, and parameters serialisation/deserialisation. The software is mainly written in the Java programming language, using an embedded version of Apache Tomcat application Server. BNode services use open-source libraries and frameworks including: Jena, Apache Axis, Apache Lucene, Apache Jackrabbit, Apache Ant, JUnit, HSQLDB. The BNode exposes its services through a SOAP web-service application programming interface. A Java Server Pages (JSP) web-based GUI is provided for the administrative tasks including configuration of the network settings, security, and user management. Users interact with a BNode through the BRICKS Pillar applications. Applications The BRICKS Workspace is a JSP web application based on the Struts framework. It offers a view of the BRICKS Network, allowing to search and browse available collections of digital objects, group objects into logical collections, annotate objects, manage, and import them. BRICKS Workspace must be installed along the BNode software. The BRICKS Desktop is an Eclipse-RCP application providing a more advanced access to the BNode services. It features a fully configurable user application framework allowing advanced metadata editing, ontology browsing, extensive searching, and interactive content creation. Many other applications based on the BRICKS platform exist, including specific applications for the Cultural