Sonderband 2. International Council on Archives. Dritte Europäische Archivkonferenz, Wien 11. bis 15. Mai 1993. Tagungsprotokolle (1996)

4. Session / Séance. Strategies for Links with Historical Research / Stratégies de Communication envers la Recherche historique - Gonzalez, Pedro: Data Bases and Long Distance Communication. A Spanish Éxperience / Bases de données et information a distance. Une expérience des archives espagnoles (english 319 - français 343)

5.2. Some technical aspects

Taking into consideration the functions which the system is going to computerize, and also taking into consideration the need for flexibility so that the future system will be able to be used in other archives which are either bigger or smaller than the AGI, a modular system was designed which took into consideration the „distributed process“ concept.

The system as a whole comprises a number of sub-systems, each one of which covers a combination of functions which are logically related to each other and which are carried out in their corresponding operating environments, that is to say, computers with operating systems and communication facilities.

The various subsystems are as follows:- Linking interface: provides the rest of the sub-system with the necessary communication, by sending messages from one to another.- User interface: facilitates user dialogue, changing its questions into messages to be sent to the corresponding sub-system and converting the received messages into easily intelligible answers. It is a question of making the system as „user friendly“ as possible. To develop this interface, the Presentation Manager and Dialog Manager have been used.- Textual data base: provides support for the Information and Reference system, including the descriptive information which can give the user the tools needed for access to original and reproduced documents. The data base follows the relational model, using SQL as the access tool.- Digital Image Storage System: takes care of the tasks of digitalizing documents and storage in the optical disc, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it offers the user the necessary means to look up the digitalized messages with all its possibilities of improved legibility. Indeed, this is one of the most striking and innovative aspects of the system, due to the number of tools specifically developed to improve the legibility of the documents by: eliminating stains and transparency of ink, increasing contrast in the case of pale inks, etc.13- User management: permits the checking of research, reading rooms, requests for reproducing documents, the movement of documents within an archive, etc.

4. Session/Séance: Gonzâlez, Data Bases and long distance Communcation

13 Specific informations about the research line about the image and legibility enhancement:

Be sc os, Julian: Image procesing algorithms for readability enchancement of old manuscripts, in: Electronic Imaging 89, vol. 1 (Pasadena 1989), p. 392-397; idem[et al.]: Reflectance and optical contrast of Old Manuscripts: wavelength dependence in: Julian Bescos, Francisco Jaque, Luis Montoto, SPIE, (1988) v. 1028, p. 258—262; Bescos, Julian [et al.]: Filtering and compression of old manuscripts by adaptive processing techniques, in: Juliân Bescos, Juan Pedro Secilla, Juan Navarro, Society for Information Display International Symposium (Las Vegas 1990), p. 384—387; Bescos, Julian [et al.]: Mejora de legibilidad de documentas antiguos mediante tratamiento digital de imâgenes, in: Julian Bescos, Juan Navarro, Carlos Ramon, IV Simposium Nacional de Reconocimiento de Formas y Anâlisis de Imâgenes Granada, 1990, p. 51-58.

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