Organisation of information search system
on the base of multimedia database.

A.L. Priorov
Yaroslavl State University
Address: 150000, Yaroslavl, Sovetskaya st., 14
Phone: (0852) 32-11-94
E-mail: pri@cnit.uniyar.ac.ru

By producing multimedia products on CD-ROMs creators inescapably encounter some problems connected with the methods of hybrid multimedia information storage. If the multimedia product (MMP) to be created is an information search system then the date organisation plays a key role.

Three approaches to the organisation of information storage and its representation are known. These are data location directly in the program body, storage of data as files and using of relative databases. Each of the approaches has both advantages and disadvantages. To all appearance a rational combination of all the three methods of data organisation is the most preferable by designing information search multimedia systems.

Just such “hybrid” data structure is used in MMP “Yaroslavl icon painting”, created by the Yaroslavl centre of new information technologies at co-operation with the Yaroslavl art museum. The information kernel of MMP is the relative database including more than 20 tables, containing an detailed information about icons from XIII to XX centuries and their fragments, icon painters, subjects, literary sources, restorers, exhibitions etc. High quality images of icons and their pictograms are stored in graphic files, on which in a database there are appropriate links. On each century additionally there is a video, audio and text information also stored as files of appropriate formats.

The organisation of multimedia information as a relative database has allowed us to realise in MMP a flexible system of icons and their fragments searched by specific attributes, such as name, subject, time of creation, icon painter, commissioner etc (all about twenty attributes) that permit to select icons both by separate attributes, and their specific combination. The given possibility is of specific interest for the experts investigating the icon-painting art.

The aim of the search database is to provide as the most detailed information about each icon from the CD as possible. The search system makes it easy to view both an icon as the whole and its details as well. The attributes to be specified are

• name
• literary source
• number of border scenes
• kind of saint (apostle, prophet, reverend)
• time of creation
• place the icon was produced for initially
• its current location
• size
• subject
• Icon painter
• Commissioner
• Restorer
• Exhibitions where the icon was exposed
• Literature the icon is mentioned in

Thus one can get the most complete information about each monument, time of its creation, its location and study. This information is of universal character. If for the incompetent it is interesting just to view an icon and learn the time and circumstances of its appearance, the experts – historians, museum workers – can use the valuable data about the history of the icon’s existence, exhibitions and literature about it.

The experience in using the information search system produced on the base of multimedia database has shown its high performance and simplicity in operation. Such its organisation provides the possibility to easily expand the database itself according to the accumulation of information about the Yaroslavl monuments of icon painting.

Gorshkova Victoria Viktorovna, the manager of the department of ancient Russian art of Yaroslavl art museum, has been graduated from the Yaroslavl state university in 1977 as historian and from the Repin institute of the Art Academy as art historian in 1985.

Shtern Gennady Pavlovich, associate professor at the Yaroslavl State University, has been graduated from the Yaroslavl State University in 1989 as applied mathematician.

Priorov Andrei Leonidovich, philosophy doctor at the Yaroslavl State University, in 1986 graduated with excellence from the Yaroslavl State University as Physicist.

Yaroslavl Centre of New Information Technologies (YarCNIT) was established in 1992 according the decision of the Ministry of Sciences, Russian Federation. YarCNIT is the structural part of Yaroslavl State University named after P.G. Demidov. Within the frameworks of YarCNIT the Demo-Hall for Information Technologies in the Humanities and the Scientific-Technological Program for the Humanities "Yaroslavia" were opened in 1994 and 1996 correspondingly.

YarCNIT is intended to act in the sphere of new information technologies in education and university science. The main tasks of the Centre are the projects devoted to studying and preserving of historical and cultural heritage of Yaroslavl Region, works in the area of information technologies of humanitarian sphere.

These tasks are solved by creating the specialised web-servers, producing CD-ROMs, developing the distant learning courses elements, developing and creating the corporate databases. The main used concepts for solving the current tasks are multimedia and Internet.

YarCNIT presents the results at various conferences, in mass media, by publishing CD-ROMs and sharing Internet resources.

Last time the results were presented at the following conferences:

• International conference ADIT'99 "Museums and information space: information technologies problem and cultural heritage" - Yaroslavl, 17-21 May 1999.
• International conference EVA'99 "Digital images and visual art" - Moscow, 20-25 November 1999.
• All-Russia annual conference of "History and Computer" Association - Moscow, 6-9 April 2000.
• International exhibition "Intermuseum - 2000" - Moscow, March, 2000