When setting up a database system one of the most important questions next to structuring the tables and records is how the raw data material is represented, i.e. stored, in the database.
In the EAGLET multimedia specification some DB attributes are of a static nature (e.g. text strings like the orthographic form), some are more abstract (e.g. the hyperlink relations inbetween the term set or with entities locally or somewhere out there in the WWW) and others may be of a highly dynamical type (e.g. video or sound samples).
The provision of static information is in principle easy (though often expensive) to generate a priori, for example by using filters to scan given sources). Other types of hyperlink relation or multimedial event may have to be generated on demand as a response to the client's query (often called `on-the-fly' generation).
The database system consequently has to provide several different methods for generating, updating and storage of term information.