Systems and methods for providing multimedia information management

A system for facilitating searching and retrieval of multimedia data items, comprising:

• means for receiving data items from a plurality of types of media sources;
• means for identifying regions in the data items, the regions including document regions, section regions, and passage regions, each of the section regions corresponding to one of the document regions, each of the passage regions corresponding to one of the section regions and one of the document regions;
• means for generating document keys that identify the document regions;
• means for generating section keys that identify the section regions;
• means for generating passage keys that identify the passage regions;
• means for creating a document table, a section table, and a passage table;
• means for storing the document keys in the document table;
• means for storing the section keys and corresponding ones of the document keys in the section table;
• and
• means for storing the passage keys and corresponding ones of the document keys and the section keys in the passage table.

A system for facilitating searching and retrieval of multimedia data items, comprising:

• a database configured to store:
• a document table that includes a plurality of document records,
• a section table that includes a plurality of section records, and
• a passage table that includes a plurality of passage records;
• and
• a loader connected to the database and configured to:
• receive data items from a plurality of types of media sources,
• identify regions in the data items, the regions including document regions, section regions, and passage regions, each of the section regions corresponding to one of the document regions, each of the passage regions corresponding to one of the section regions and one of the document regions,
• store document identifiers relating to the document regions in separate ones of the document records in the document table,
• store section identifiers relating to the section regions in separate ones of the section records in the section table, and
• store passage identifiers relating to the passage regions in separate ones of the passage records in the passage table.

A database that stores data items relating to a plurality of media types, the data items including a plurality of regions, the regions including document regions, section regions, and passage regions, each of the section regions corresponding to one of the document regions, each of the passage regions corresponding to one of the section regions and one of the document regions, the database comprising:

• a document table configured to store a plurality of document keys that identify the document regions as a plurality of document records;
• a section table configured to store a plurality of section keys that identify the section regions as a plurality of section records, the section records also storing corresponding ones of the document keys;
• and
• a passage table configured to store a plurality of passage keys that identify the passage regions as a plurality of passage records, the passage records also storing corresponding ones of the section keys and the document keys.