The MULINEX project is concerned with the efficient use of multilingual online information. The aim is to process multilingual information and present it to the user in a way which facilitates finding and evaluating the desired information quickly and accurately. The international project is co-ordinated by the DFKI. In the initial phase of the project search queries and summaries of web documents are translated to enable the user to make use of multilingual information. At a later stage, aided by technology from the area of Computational Linguistics, multilingual content will be indexed not only using words occurring in the text, but also according to concepts. The application will offer an economic advantage in particular to providers of multilingual online and WWW services. At present the internet is still dominated by English services and content. However, the proportion of information present in other languages is increasing daily. In the not too distant future, citizens of the information society will be able to navigate through the digitalised knowledge of humanity in their mother tongue; even though this knowledge will be distributed across the globe in a multitude of languages.

• MULINEX combines the newest Information Retrieval Technology with advanced Language Technology to improve search and navigation in the WWW.
• Search queries in the user's language also find documents written in other languages.
• Search results can be filtered according to language and subject area.
• User-friendly navigation aids facilitate finding the information required.
• Concept-based search avoids irrelevant search results which often arise due to ambiguities in language (e.g. bank as either a financial institution or a river bank).
• Automatic translation facilitates the understanding of documents in foreign languages.
• The efficient administration of multilingual WWW sites lowers costs for the provider and increases the user-friendliness for users.