The overall objective of FAETHON project is to develop an integrated information system that offers enhanced search and retrieval capabilities to users of digital audiovisual (a/v) archives. This novel system will exploit the advances in handling a/v content and related metadata, as introduced by MPEG-4 and worked out by MPEG-7, to offer advanced access services characterized by the tri-fold "semantic phrasing of the request (query)", "unified handling" and "personalized response". From a technical point of view, the proposed system will play the role of an intermediate access server residing between the end users and multiple heterogeneous audiovisual archives organized according to new MPEG standards. Various types of interfacing modules will be designed/ implemented to support smooth communication of the intermediate server to the a/v archives. The major final product will be an integrated software system consisting of the two, semantic unification and personalization subsystems, together with two types of interfaces. Namely, those between the system and the individual a/v archives and those between the system and the end-users.