ExoForCatania

Engineering has implemented - using eXo Portal - a new tool with the aim to support workers in historical researches. The portal contents deal with the Italian Historical Archives and with the Archives of the Mediterranean area as well. This portal, for the first phase of the project ending in June 2007, will give access to about 60.000 digital documents containing up to 240.000 digital images. Users will retreive all documents using a search tool specifically designed for historical research purposes and for the enhancement and spreading of the Historical Archives. The contents are classified by means of a knowledge management tool using a specific taxonomy definition, indexes and thesauri. Portal information will be available in six different languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Hebrew, while historical contents will be available in their original language (e.g.: Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, Italian, French, Vulgar, Sardinian, etc.). The application has been realized through the use of a mainly open source environment (JBoss application server, eXo Portal, Engineering SCF for the Content Management System, Oracle RDBMS for content indexing and multi-language thesauri). User interface is compliant to the requirements of the Italian accessibility law (Legge Stanca). The portal will be on-line at the beginning of 2007.