Information Retrieval of the excavation diaries: an active Internet application

At the beginning of the Caere Project the functionality of the encoding model implemented for the Vigna Parrocchiale excavation diaries was verified by conducting a series of searches of the electronic documents using specific key elements. In order to make the documents querying system more flexible and accurate, an Internet application based on the ASP (Active Server Pages) and VBSCRIPT technology has been implemented.

The creation of a static Internet site, consisting solely of HTML pages, is a simple undertaking. On the other hand, the implementation of active pages is not such a simple process. They are unique pages created each time on the basis of the choices made by the user.

In fact, the ASP technology is capable of managing the complexity of the relationships between elements in the text and of integrating other programs, such as those used to create the digital graphic documentation of the site; moreover, it is not only a medium for data analysis but also for data dissemination, which is a key requirement of the overall project.
The ASP application takes the form of an active web site, capable of managing all the text of the diaries and performing complex data searches on the basis of chronological and topological queries. The complete system, the program devoted to cartographical management and the information retrieval application, interactively communicate using ASP technology. By applying this technology it has been possible to connect textual data with digital cartography through specific hypertextual links, in order to visualise the search results in a browser. One distinct advantage of using ASP is that all the commercially available browsers are able to access this form of application which has been expressly designed to distribute data through the Internet.