VAN EyCK Cultural Archive Brochure

VAN EyCK Cultural Archive

The VAN EyCK image archive is a cultural online service. It was introduced by the VAN EyCK foundation in Leiden, and developed by BSL. The name is an acronym for ‘Visual Arts Network for the Exchange of Cultural Knowledge’. The system provides access to a virtual museum of still images and catalogue records. A database describing a vast range of art objects, artists from different time periods and genres, and from different art institutes. BSL played a major role in the project. First developing a prototype, and later creating the database and website.

VAN EyCK Cultural Archive Brochure

The VAN EyCK project was an initiative of The Netherlands Institute of Art History (RKD) and the Witt Library in London. It was funded by two European Commission programs. The main goal was to develop an international online cultural database. One that can be searched easily and quickly using a single interface. An interface that hides the individual classification systems used by the content providers. Museums, libraries and galleries manage digital collections in their own way. They use their own keywords, as well as international classification systems (such as Iconclass). To create VAN EyCK, we combined an Oracle database with powerful indexing technology from Autonomy (now HPE IDOL). The result: an innovative service, giving users access to catalogs from multiple institutes. Sophisticated searches can be carried out quickly and easily, even on multi-lingual data!