OMNIS/2: A Multimedia Meta System for Existing Digital Libraries

Since today more and more complementary information is available in different electronic media there is an increasing demand for the integration of traditional digital library systems and multimedia systems. In this paper we present the OMNIS/2 system, which is an advanced meta system and enhances existing digital library systems or retrieval systems by additional storing and indexing of user-defined multimedia documents, automatic and personal linking concepts, annotations, filtering and personalization. The key concept of OMNIS/2 is that all of the above mentioned features are accomplished without changing the underlying documents. In our architecture existing digital library systems, which are established applications, serve as a document storage layer, while OMNIS/2 forms the multimedia storage layer, linking layer and personalization layer. This general approach ensures the integration and transparent combination of different digital library systems. Thus with OMNIS/2, even mere retrieval systems and nowadays most digital library systems are mere retrieval systems can be enriched to interactive multimedia DL-systems and are combined into one virtual personal digital library. OMNIS/2 is part of the Global Inventory Project of the G7 countries.