Dynamic Hypermedia From a Museum Database: The Gold of Greece Application

Two traditions coexist in the use of information technology in museums. The first tradition, museum information systems, stems from the introduction about twenty five years ago of computers in a small number of large museums for the compilation and off-line use of inventories, indexes and lists. Microcomputer software available off-theshelf is used by a considerable number of European museums, incorporating both documentation and collections management facilities (Dallas, 1990). The second tradition, cultural interactive multimedia, concerns mostly the disseminating function of museums, i.e., the support of exhibition, publication and educational activities. Many important cultural interactive applications have been produced so far using Interactive Videodisc. The combination of microcomputers with digital storage media such as CD-ROM in the late 1980s allowed the easier delivery of applications and the integration of data and application logic within the same medium. Combining an Interactive Videodisc with a CD-ROM, the Perseus Hypercard application allowed students of Classics and archaeology to retrieve a wide range of visual, textual and formatted data concerning Classical Greek culture (Crane, 1992).