Books are brought to life with the help of multimedia technology at the Interactive Book Museum in Madrid, following the completon of a project begun by the National Library in 1991. Informatica El Corte Ingles SA has worked together with the Library to compile 600 photographs, 9,000 digitised images, five hours of video and more than 2,000 graphics to use in multimedia systems that have been installed to complement the books in the museum. There are three types of multimedia systems, interactive panels, multimedia kiosks and multimedia modules, but they all share common features of design. At the entrance to each of the museum’s seven rooms there are interactive panels, which present information in the form of text and graphics using bias lighting. By pressing a series of buttons, visitors can make specific enquiries. The multimedia kiosks house a 33MHz 80486 VL Inves personal computer with 16Mb RAM, 240Mb disk, 1Mb Super VGA graphics adaptor, Invesparcoax 16 network board and an Inves monitor with Microtouch Inc Cleartek touch-screen. A second configuration adds a Videologic Plc DVA-4000 card, Compagnie des Machines Bull SA X.25 communications board and Sony Corp lPD-1550 laser vision video disk, and a further configuration includes Invesparcoax 16 network boards and a 4Mb Intel Corp Action Media II Digital Video Interactive system. The multimedia modules, 11 in number, are cube-like structures that the user actually has to go inside. There are three variations. The basic module contains two of the multimedia systems that are employed in the kiosks, but it also incorporates six halogen spotlights, a Sony MU-A200 amplifier and a Sony MU-S701 loudspeaker. A second version includes two Kodak Ektapro 9000 slide projectors, a Sony GDM-2039 monitor and an Inves lighting controller. This is particularly suitable for viewing manuscripts and incunabula: books that were printed before 1501. Finally, the third version replaces the slide projectors with a projection system based on hologram technology. This enables a virtual performance to be staged. Two-dimensional moving images from video disks appear in an interactively-lit setting created with the help of models. Thus at a touch of the screen, visitors can summon virtual figures that will move around a model of the Ulpia library in Rome, for example, as they listen to information about the transition from use of papyrus scrolls to parchment manuscripts. To produce these effects, the applications software controls three video disk players and three monitors which use the reflection of mercury-covered glass to add the moving images to the models, as well as 24 interactive light sources.
