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He will be offered an interactive keyword structure enabling him the selection of exhibits he is looking for. But this is not all. He will be capable of linking terms and other non-verbal expressions with the images, and to evoke, through this very procedure, new and unexpected visions and combinations, thus combining both seeing and thinking. All this will happen on a basis of a virtual collection of museum objects which, under normal circumstances, he would barely have a chance to ever see side by side. In other words: The virtual multimedia museum enables him to individually experience what may be called "instant cultural integration".
Of course, the EMN project, being only a pilot project aimed at the demonstration of viability, was of very limited size. At project's end, the system featured 800 museum exhibits contributed by the eight partners. As part of the concept it had been up to each partner to select the single items, and there were no formal or topical restrictions for their respective contributions. Each of the exhibits came along with a wealthy pool of keywords. On top of this, over 4,000 multimedia information packages, each filling up to ten screens, were incorporated in the system. This includes many thousands of images, black and white or color, imbedded imbeded in text and/or along with sound documents.
Although, unfortunately, the co-operation of the partners came to an end with the termination of the funding of the project, most of the museums involved are going on still feeding the system. So, the data base of the EMN is steadily growing. The memory is extendable, and multimedia production is easy to learn. The system is freely portable and can be installed in every museum, so that it is a safe assumption that more museums will join the venture. Each museum is free to contribute additions to the data pool at its discretion. This may be carried out not only by the museum professionals proper, but by experts of all kinds.
Guided Tours follows a more traditional way of informing and teaching. This part was set up by museum experts, like educators and curators, or by school teachers and professors.
Under this program, “visitors” can explore their topics of interest by running through a series of simple, pre-formatted formated steps, in which access to pictures, graphs and text in a Windows-type application is combined. All the information contributed by the participating museums is easily at hand.
Every museum is free to implement its own Guided Tour. In terms of the EMN project, the Guided Tour may be considered as the standard way to access the knowledge sources contained in the system.
Under a set of special rules, the system will be capable of improving, by interaction with the users, the terminological representation of the targets and the links felt to exist between them.
<big>So, the system would be capable of dynamically adapting itself to the way of how the user thinks and how he acquires new knowledge. This would then be the dynamic and "learning" part of the system.</big>
This special part of the system will be the Dynamic Knowledge Acquisition Adaptor.
