Computer Associates International (CA) has announced that a group working to preserve the rich history of the Netherlands municipality of het Bildt is implementing Jasmine, CA`s widely acclaimed information infrastructure, to design an application and Web site that will let users electronically search the municipality`s records dating back to 1737.
Historians, genealogists and other researchers from around the world have expressed a growing interest in the detailed real estate records, maps, public records and family histories stored in the municipality`s archives. To meet this interest, the Historical Parcels Project (HPP) undertook the task of automating the process of searching and retrieving more than 260 years of historical documents, records and artefacts.
"Designing a system to manipulate the diverse sources of information contained in the municipality`s public records required a sophisticated database management solution," said Edward Kuiken, group project manager and the het Bildt city worker who initiated this project. "It appeared to be very difficult to build an application that would digitally store information and that could follow the structure of an historical archive. Jasmine met our requirements in every respect."
After reviewing a number of alternatives, the municipality selected Jasmine because of its object-oriented architecture. "Jasmine allows us to build an application that represents the same structure as an historical archive," said Kuiken. "Its intelligent infrastructure not only stores the original materials but also retains information about how the documents are connected to each other."
"Another important advantage of Jasmine is that it effectively and easily stores all kinds of information, not just text," added Sytse Keizer, information analyst and system developer, and chairman of the working group.
The Public Record Office of the county of Friesland, Netherlands, supplemented the municipality`s records with original maps and other county documents. These documents from the 1700s, which are often fragile, were scanned and digitised by Arfo Colour Techniques, a CA business partner that is hosting the Jasmine-powered Web site, www.arfo.nl/hpp, for the working group.
The scanned objects were easily integrated into a growing database of surveys, photos, text records and other documents. By leveraging the Jasmine multimedia capabilities, the municipality can also add video and audio objects to the database when needed.
Offering Web access to these records has provided het Bildt and researchers around the world a number of significant advantages. Once the records were scanned and indexed, researchers could search and sort them in ways that create opportunities for historical preservation that were not possible beforehand. "
Moreover, because researchers can now access records from around the world without physically inspecting them, the municipality`s public records staffs have more time to concentrate on other tasks. "Every historical archive in the world will profit from a Jasmine-like solution," said Klaas Broeils, governmental manager of the municipality of het Bildt and programmer of the working group. "We are gratified that the municipality`s cultural heritage will be better preserved, as original materials no longer need to be manipulated."
"The historical records application of HPP het Bildt is a good example of the way in which society can profit from information technology," said Henk Douma, managing director of CA in the Netherlands. "This application goes beyond optimising automation to improve the service level of the organization and creates new possibilities for the future. "
CA`s Jasmine is a comprehensive information infrastructure to build and deploy multimedia applications over client/server and Web computing environments. Jasmine provides extensive support for all types of information beyond text and numbers, such as video, sound and images. It also delivers universal application logic and data integration over an enterprise network, from desktops to mainframes, regardless of the data source.
Computer Associates International, the world leader in mission-critical business computing, provides software, support and integration services in more than 100 countries around the world. CA has more than 14,000 employees and had revenue of $5.3 billion in fiscal year 1999.
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