Navig'art, the art works database browser

Videomuseum, a consortium of French museums and other institutions, is managing modern and contemporary art in public collections. Videomuseum develops methods and tools using new technologies to inventory and promote the knowledge of the national heritage of modern and contemporary art. This paper presents the Videomuseums latest software development -- Navig'art -- and discusses how it fits in Videomuseum general strategy and public education in the arts. Navig'art allows hypertext navigation and multi-criteria queries of structured art/image databases. It supports web technologies and therefore can be used on intranets as well as on the internet. One of the customization features allows the definition of users profiles types from museum curator to occasional visitor, enhancing its educational potential. Navig'art can also be a tool for electronic publishing on optical media (CD-ROM, DVD-ROM).