1. An information retrieval system comprising: a plurality of databases; and a server for providing client access to the plurality of databases, wherein the server includes: database-selection means for enabling a user to select one of a first or a second set of categories, with each of the first set of categories associated with a subset of the plurality of databases and each of the second set of categories associated with a respective set of interactive control features for requesting additional category-specific information from the user; database-navigation means for providing a user-navigable directory of at least a subset of the plurality of databases, with the directory including: one or more beginning, intermediate, and terminal nodes, with each intermediate node associated with at least one of the beginning nodes and one or more of the terminal nodes, and each terminal node associated with a subset of the plurality of databases or a subset of corresponding database profiles; and one or more sets of interactive control features, with each set of control features associated with a corresponding one of the intermediate nodes for enabling the user to query a set of databases including databases associated with each terminal node that is associated with the one of the intermediate nodes; and database-discovery means for receiving a user-defined query, for executing the received query against a profile database including profiles of one or more of the plurality of databases, and for identifying one or more databases from the plurality of databases based on computed relevance of the corresponding profiles to the received query and according to a ranking of the profiles having the corresponding computed relevance based on a jurisdictional lexical analysis, wherein the query includes a plurality of terms, wherein the computed relevance includes a bias based on geographic, jurisdictional, or generic terms in the query.
5. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a plurality metadata-based database profiles, with at least one of the profiles associated with one or more databases in the plurality of databases.