In this  week reading, Mr.Manovich first explains the term “database” in computer science as a structured collection of data. The data stored in a database is anything but a simple collection of items. There are different types of databases such as hierarchical, network, relational, and object-oriented; use different models to organize data.

He then addresses database as a cultural form of its own, a new symbolic form of a computer science age. The world appears to us as an endless and unstructured collection of texts, images, and other data records; it’s only appropriate that we will be moved to model it as a database.

Manovich the uses the CD-ROM as an example to exemplify the dominance of database forms in new media. The identity of a CD-ROM as a storage media is projected onto another place, becomes a cultural form of its own. Multimedia works that have “cultural” content appear particularly to favor the database form.

He also mentions the Web pages are computer files that can always be edited, which makes Web sites a open resource as they always grow. New links, new contents are being added. As the result, Web comes a collection, not a story since new elements are being added over time.