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The MeMO Information SystemMeMO Information System (MeMO IS)The main objective of the MeMO project is to create the MeMO Information System (MeMO IS), a user-friendly web-based internet application that brings together inventories and descriptions of texts and objects that played a fundamental role in medieval commemorative practices. It aims to facilitate new possibilities for memoria research: it enables scholars to combine case studies with broad comparative research. Until now quantitative research has been considerably impeded because the sources are dispersed over archives, museums, libraries, churches etc. The MeMO project brings descriptions of these sources together.MeMO IS makes use of the databases that were developed for the project, which contains extensive descriptions of the sources, including photographs of the objects and full text scans of the texts. These databases were developed using a description standard and a data model, which were developed especially for the MeMO project. MeMO Description Standard (MeMO DS)The MeMO Description Standard (MeMO DS) is a generic description standard for texts and objects that are fundamental for memoria research. The reason for developing MeMO DS is twofold. Firstly it will enable researchers to describe source materials that concern the commemoration of the dead in the same standardised manner. Secondly it will promote the exchangeability of both the infrastructure as well as the data among scholars. Although other description standards for works of art and documents exist (such as CDWA for works of art and EAD for archival material), these description standards do not cover all the types of information that are important for memoria research. MeMO DS focuses especially on those aspects. It goes without saying that the already existing description standards have been taken into account in the development of MEMO DS.Due to the complexity of the source material, MeMO DS comprises two different sets of descriptive elements: one set for the objects and one for the texts. Each consists of an element set and the accompanying definitions. In addition an extra description standard was developed for the institutions where the sources originated.
Data model and Database systemMeMO DS was taken as the starting point for the development of a data model. This model formed the basis for the creation of the Database system. The database system comprises three sections: one for the objects (VVP), one for the texts (VVP), and one for the institutions of origin (VVP).The MeMO application will be user-friendly and platform-independent. The sustainability of the research infrastructure is strengthened through the use of internationally accepted open standards for data exchange (in XML format), expressing semantics, incorporating already existing digital resources relevant for memoria research and the creation of open source software tools to enable the analysis of the memoria sources. The future re-use and extensibility of the data created during the MeMO project, as well as interoperability with related systems, are important features of the research infrastructure created by this project. - This page was last updated on: June 20th, 2011 (Files with the .vpp extension require the program Visual Paradigm and Acrobat Reader is required to open PDF files.) Back to top |
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