The aggregation of heterogeneous metadata in web-based cultural heritage collections: a case study

In this paper, we discuss some issues related to digital libraries that are born as aggregators of cultural heritage resources harvested from different distributed digital repositories. Whenever such aggregations fall short of providing a real service to users, most of the time this is due to the inadequacy of the data or conceptual model proposed for the mapping and exposed to the final user. Our aim is to enhance the formal representation of cultural heritage materials, reasoning about some key concepts to improve the quality of the description of digital resources by refining the conceptual model. In order to discuss about these issues, we focus particularly on Europeana, the principal European Digital Library, as the foremost and most paradigmatic example of aggregators, and on the Europeana Data Model EDM as the conceptual model on which metadata from different repositories are mapped in Europeana.

[1]  William Y. Arms.  Key concepts in the architecture of the digital library , 1995, D Lib Mag..

[2]  Lyn Condron,et al.  Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records , 2004 .

[3]  Tim Berners-Lee,et al.  Linked data , 2020, Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist.

[4]  Paolo Manghi,et al.  Realizing and Maintaining Aggregative Digital Library Systems: D-NET Software Toolkit and OAIster System , 2010, D Lib Mag..

[5]  Robert Wilensky,et al.  A framework for distributed digital object services , 2006, International Journal on Digital Libraries.

[6]  Timothy W. Cole,et al.  Harvesting cultural heritage metadata using the OAI protocol , 2003 .

[7]  Paolo Manghi,et al.  Aggregative Data Infrastructures for the Cultural Heritage , 2012, MTSR.

[8]  Tom Heath,et al.  Linked Data: Evolving the Web into a Global Data Space , 2011, Linked Data.

[9]  George A. Miller,et al.  WordNet: A Lexical Database for English , 1995, HLT.

[10]  Fabio Vitali,et al.  Reflecting on the Europeana Data Model , 2012, IRCDL.

[11]  Sean Bechhofer,et al.  SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference , 2009 .

[12]  Herbert Van de Sompel,et al.  IJDL special issue on complex digital objects: Guest editors' introduction , 2005, International Journal on Digital Libraries.

[13]  Heiko Schuldt,et al.  The Delos digital library reference model : foundations for digital libraries , 2007 .

[14]  Jens Lehmann,et al.  DBpedia - A crystallization point for the Web of Data , 2009, J. Web Semant..

[15]  Antoine Isaac,et al.  data.europeana.eu: The Europeana Linked Open Data Pilot , 2011, Dublin Core Conference.

[16]  Bernhard Haslhofer,et al.  Augmenting Europeana content with linked data resources , 2010, I-SEMANTICS '10.

[17]  Cesare Concordia,et al.  Europeana v1.0 , 2011, IRCDL.

[18]  Carol Henry,et al.  International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions , 1979 .

[19]  Silvio Peroni,et al.  FaBiO and CiTO: Ontologies for describing bibliographic resources and citations , 2012, J. Web Semant..

[20]  Fabio Vitali,et al.  Scholarly publishing and linked data: describing roles, statuses, temporal and contextual extents , 2012, I-SEMANTICS '12.

[21]  Wolfgang Klas,et al.  A survey of techniques for achieving metadata interoperability , 2010, CSUR.