a plurality of document repositories for storing documents;

a document notification and delivery service (DNDS) for detecting documents pertaining to subjects of interest that are stored in the document repositories;

a plurality of notification targets for subscribing to subjects at the DNDS to receive alerts when documents are identified that pertain to one or more subscribed subjects of interest; and

a plurality of workflow modules, that can be added or removed, subscribing to the DNDS to receive documents identified that pertain to one or more subscribed subjects of interest; at least two workflow modules automatically producing one or more documents that are published to one or more of the document repositories without user intervention;

wherein a first workflow module publishes to one of the document repositories a first document which is detected by the DNDS and which pertains to at least one subscribed subject of interest of a second workflow module;

subsequent to the publication of the first document by the DNDS to the one of the document repositories, the DNDS processes the first document and then delivers the first document to the second workflow module that does not require the first workflow module to produce a second document;

the DNDS includes:

a plurality of document repositories, each storing a plurality of documents;

a subject directory for representing subjects of the plurality of documents in the plurality of document repositories;

a profile directory for representing a plurality of users accounts, each user account subscribing to at least one subject of interest;

a subject refinement module for:

monitoring document notifications and delivery requests associated with the document notifications to provide subject refinement data;

using the subject refinement data to refine subjects in the subject directory;

deleting a subject in the subject directory based on access activity of a subject; and

adding a subject to the subject directory based on access activity of a cluster of sources within a subject; and

a failure recovery module for:

recording component failure information;

assigning each of the document repositories according to one of a plurality of operating behaviors using the component failure information; and

determining appropriate action to take in response to component identified failures using the operating behavior assigned to the document repository to which the component is associated;

the plurality of operating behaviors indicate a degree of reliability;

the appropriate action is predefined in a profile directory of the user accounts; and

one of the at least two workflow modules is associated with a user that performs one or more tasks to produce one or more documents that are managed by a workflow module according to subject matter described in the one or more documents.