1. A collection knowledge system process for delivering knowledge to application programs, comprising the following steps: (a) receiving a knowledge request to provide requested knowledge, (b) building a set of search rules to guide a search for said requested knowledge, (c) performing a knowledge search for said requested knowledge using said set of search rules, and (d) returning knowledge search results to the request originator, thereby providing a solution to the scalable knowledge delivery problem, and thereby enabling application programs to obtain arbitrary processing knowledge in a fully-automated, scalable way that was not previously available.