Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...

MA for “Wasserzeichen des Mittelalters” of the Austrian
Academy of Sciences in Vienna (www.ksbm.oeaw.ac.at/wz/wzma.php);
and NIKI, the database of the Dutch University
Institute for Art History Florence.
The simple search and the advanced search each have
their own search mask, as is common on all sites that offer
a free text search. The simple search has a so-called Google
slot that is used to search in all fields. In the advanced
search, the user can freely choose and combine the individual
fields and additionally, can navigate special search fields
in the individual databases. As in Piccard-Online, in the
Bernstein-Portal, it is possible to truncate watermark motifs
and to query by means of an “and” or “or” search; this is
augmented by a non-link. In addition, one can open dropdown
menus to find indices in the various search fields, including
motifs, location, archive, date, and card number, in
order to select a search term (see Ill. 8).
The query results are listed first in an abbreviated form,
from which one can choose individual hits. Based on the
defining parameters, this short list contains abridged metadata
and, in some cases, thumbnails of the watermarks to
give a first visual impression. In the single hit display, the exact
metadata of the chosen watermark is given; from here
one is able to return to the original database. In addition,
one can generate additional statistical and geographical information.
Integration of Piccard-Online
into the Bernstein-Portal
In order to integrate Piccard-Online into the Bernstein-
Workspace it is necessary for the two to be terminologically
and technologically correlated. Since the Bernstein collaboration
partners decided to leave all data in their individual
local servers, queries and responses are through the SRU interface.
SRU stands for “Search/Retrieval via URL” and is
based on the Z 39.50 interface that is commonly used for library
links, as for example the library portal Bibnetz
(www.bibnetz.de). It was developed further for archival
purposes and is already being used in a British archive portal
(www.archiveshub.ac.uk/).
In the Bernstein-Portal, a decentralised data administration
is used instead of a data warehouse, an administration
that has advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage
of a decentralised data administration is that the sovereignty
over the data remains in the individual institutions.
The disadvantages include occasional slow responses for
queries, consequences for the searches after possible data
fields changes in the original databases, and result hits that
are merely based on the databases’ lowest common denominator.
In order to avoid such problems, a correlation at
the terminological level has been worked out between Piccard-Online
and WZMA and WILC, the so-called Bernstein-
Thesaurus. It already exists in English, German, and French,
and is just being translated into other languages, as for example
into Russian.
In addition to a unification of terminology, a prerequisite
for an overall search in the databases is also a correlation
between the databases or their comparable fields. The
overall goal is to develop a system for watermark classifica-
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tion that allows the incorporation of new databases. In the
Bernstein-Workspace, “Dublin Core Extended” is used to
define the fields. In the participating databases WILC, WZ-
MA and Piccard-Online, there are currently thirteen data
fields that are underlying the Bernstein-Portal.
Piccard-Online is a relational database and is based on a
MySQL database. In order to be integrated in the Bernstein-
Portal, the data model of Piccard-Online has been modified.
A query from the Bernstein-Workspace uses CQL (Contextual
Query Language), which is converted through the SRUgateway
into SQL. The results from Piccard-Online are then
presented in XML format from SQL over the SRU interface.
In the process, the following specific data fields are mapped
in the data query:
Piccard-Online Bernstein
KartenNr Ref. Number
Ueberschrift Motif
Ueberschrift_en Motif
Ueberschrift_fr Motif
Abstand_Bindedrähte Distance of ChainLines
Hoehe Height
Ort Place
Datierung_Anfang Date
Datierung_Ende Date
Herkunft_Archiv Depository
Aussteller Creator
Herkunft_Signatur Shelfmark
Breite Width
The planned hierarchical visual search in the Bernstein-Portal
will result in some optical changes, since in contrast to
the Piccard online classification of thirty-eight upper classes,
in Bernstein it is thought to have, for the time being, twelve
upper classes. The second level is divided into as many as
ninety-nine lower classes. The reduction in number of upper
and lower classes is based on already existing watermark
collections that have influenced the Bernstein classification
system. Nonetheless, the reduction of the upper
classes in Bernstein does not result in Piccard-Online changing
its normal hierarchy. The upper and lower classes are
merely defined differently, such as the upper class “Lily” in
Piccard-Online becoming a lower class of Bernstein’s classification
“Flora”, to mention only one example.
The Bernstein-Portal allows the user to undertake a systematic
navigation as well as a meta-search of watermarks
by means of the linked databases. During the search, the
user should always be able to return to the original system,
in order to have the possibility of seeing the conventional
embedding of the watermark under consideration, or be
able to evaluate its traditional classification as has arisen
historically.
C.P. (C.-P.-K.)