Multimedia visualization and interactive systems: Drawing board possibilities and server realities – a Cuban Rafter Paradigm Case

This paper aims to present the schematic for building a multimedia information visualization system and digital archive which takes advantage of a wider spectrum of media elements (images, sound, datasets) and interactivity with regards to research level historical body of knowledge.

The methodology for this interactive multimedia visualized system was based on create a digital environment to explore larger bodies of research that expand on simple text‐based Information Retrieval Database systems. Through photos, videos, interactive maps, digital audio interviews, primary documents and narrative structures the system presents new methodologies for building digital libraries. The “educational” objective of this project was to present a stylistically elegant yet intellectually robust interactive multimedia information system for academic libraries.

Building new online digital libraries must involve robust interactivity to take advantage of the computer's intrinsic specificity and the wider set of choices open to the human perceptual apparatus. Instead of text‐based navigation systems, a more creative set of visual “tools” should be explored for digital libraries including interactivity and cognitive cartographies. Key here are the terms “visual metaphor” and innovatively structuring visually intuitive “narratives” into non‐linear dynamic but humanly usable information systems.

In expanding the range of “allowable” “historical archival media” (audio, video, images, datasets, databases) in digital libraries and keeping research level academic integrity, future questions regard what this means for historiography, information construction, and questions surrounding epistemology and “archives” of the future.

Technically, the successes in building this digital library information system solve the question of how to present a large robust amount of information indifferent rich media formats in an interesting and engaging manner. The project points to methodologies to present a research spectrum depth structure of textual material that can seamlessly be incorporated through wider spectrum of media elements: images, video, audio, music, datasets and interactivity.

This paper provides a methodology for marrying a textual body of academic research with a wider spectrum of media elements (sound, images, datasets, music) and incorporating them into a digital library through an innovative methodology. It will be valuable to anyone needing guidelines and specific algorithmic recipes and suggestions for building new millennia digital libraries which take advantage of a wider spectrum of media elements.