The integrated photo-documentary online database
Zoltán Lux · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2005
The photo-documentary database forms part of the contemporary history database at the 1956 Institute. It began to be compiled in 1997 after the Institute won competitive research and development funding from the Hungarian state. There is a constant need for photographic illustrations for the Institute's printed and digital publications. Initially, digital photos were simply archived on cd-rom, with attached text files containing descriptions of them. Once a large number of photos connected with post-Second World War Hungarian history had accumulated, it was seen that storage in a database would facilitate repeated use of them. Only the descriptions were included in the database at first, while the digitalized, high-resolution files and associated thumbnails were stored in a separate cd-rom library. The photo descriptions began to be made available on the Internet in 1998. Although the user interface operated in a rather cumbersome way, there was quite a large demand from schools, public institutions and the press, mainly on the occasion of various national commemorations. (http://www.rev.hu/foto/plsql/foto_1a_www_e$.startup) For the Oral History Project presented at the 2004 IASSIST conference, the structure of the database was transformed and integrated into the contemporary history database, so that photo documents would be incorporated in a direct and uniform way into all the Internet projects the Institute is preparing. (http://server2001.rev.hu/oha/index.html) On the structure of the photo archiving and photo database in the presentation, I would like to mention the following issues and problems: 1. Technical issues concerning digitalization of the photo documents (resolution, file format, data storage). 2. Problems relating to collection, archiving and provision of the photo documents and copyright issues. Expansion of the work of collecting photo documents. 3. Description of the photo documents in the light of international standards and recommendations. 4. A short presentation of the database (structure, how photos are linked to other documents, events, persons etc.) Making the database multilingual. Search facilities and other demands. 5. Experience at the Institute with using the database.