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The universe of available cultural heritage metadata schemas grows more complex every day. Existing schemas are optimized for use in the library, archive, or museum domains and to fit the needs of shared services and applications. Emerging Linked Data approaches introduce additional challenges for metadata designers and creators responsible for implementing these standards. In other domains, design patterns are used to clearly articulate problems, their contexts, and available solutions. This poster introduces preliminary research to identify such patterns in cultural heritage metadata standards using content analysis and a participatory design methodology.
Representation Patterns for Cultural Heritage Resources
1. Representation Patterns for Cultural Heritage Resources
FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
College of Communication and Information
School of Library and Information Studies
Creating Linked Data Patterns for Libraries, Archives, and Museums
Dr. Richard J. Urban – rurban@fsu.edu – http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2817-4590
e Problem
Currently, librarians, archivists, and museum professionals can choose
from a large universe of representation standards (see Figure 1). Each of
these standards exhibits various strengths and weaknesses based on the
problems they are engineered to address. Unfortunately, standards
developers do not always explicitly articulate the problems or the
contexts that shaped a particular solution. Although Greenberg (2005)
provides a way to classify standards according to their domain,
objectives, and architecture, there is no mechanism to identify and
organize the features found within a standard.
http://lodlampatterns.org/protopattern/
Surrogate Identity
Figure 3: Graph Per Resource Pattern
(Dodds & Davis, 2011)
Figure 4: Yahoo! Design Pattern Library
(http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/)
Solution
Figure 1: Seeing Standards: A Visualization of the Metadata Universe (Riley & Becker, 2010)
Context
Linked Open Data (LOD) is an important new paradigm for de�ning
representation standards for cultural heritage resources. Unlike methods
that require the adoption of a single primary representation standard,
LOD principles encourage the reuse and extension of existing models.
Rather than building new representation standards from the ground
up, leading examples of cultural heritage Linked Data creatively remix
general LOD models with existing cultural heritage standards (see
Figure 2). Because data modeling is a sociotechnical process as much as
it is a set of technical problems, Churchill (2012) has called on
researchers to bring HCI approaches and methods to bear on data
design problems.
Design patterns – optimal solutions to common problems – are useful
tools used by developers for software engineering, interface design
(Figure 4), ontology development, and Linked Open Data modeling
(Figure 3) (Gamma, et al., 1995; Blomqvist, Gangemi, & Presutti,
2009; Dodds & Davis, 2011; Gangemi, 2005; van Harmelen, ten
Teije, & Wache, 2011). Although the library, archive, and museum
(LAM) domain frequently uses concrete examples in standards
documentation, these examples lack important features which make
design patterns useful. In addition to providing solutions, design
patterns serve an important function by identifying and articulating
common problems. By doing so, design patterns create a shared
technical lexicon around which designers, developers, and creators
can structure their conversations (Dearden & Finlay, 2006). Because
design patterns make problems, their contexts, and solutions explicit,
they can serve as important educational tools for students and novices
(Chatzigeorgiou, Tsantalis, & Deligiannis, 2008). Design pattern
languages are also capable of expressing patterns at different scales and
in ways that build relationships among patterns (Alexander, 1977).
Method
e Linked Open Data for Libraries, Archives, and Museums
(LODLAM) Patterns project seeks to establish a pattern library for
cultural heritage Linked Open Data. A Mediawiki site has been
established as a sandbox to organize "protopatterns" that emerge from
a content analysis of contemporary metadata standards. Within a
particular standard, we are asking:
• what representation features are present in the standard?
• what problem does this feature try to solve?
• what contexts/forces make this feature relevant?
• how does this feature resemble other features observed in other
standards? (does it constitute a new pattern or is it an exemplar
of one that has already been de�ned?)
Because the LODLAM community values openness and transparency,
this research blends content analysis with a distributed participatory
design methodology (Danielsson, Naghsh, Gumm, & Warr, 2008).
Members of the LODLAM community are invited to contribute to
the identi�cation of problems and solutions, iterative re�nement of
found patterns, and the ongoing organization/classi�cation of
patterns.
Figure 2: British National Bibliography Linked Data Model (http://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/natbib.html)
Problem
How can I distinguish between metadata about an original resource
and metadata about a surrogate that stands in for that resource?
Context
Cultural heritage repositories contain surrogate representations of resources
they hold in their collections (i.e., a digital image that depicts a painting).
Some document-based data management patterns may con�ate these
entities, resulting in confusing, incoherent metadata (Hutt & Riley, 2005).
Solution
Cultural heritage data models should explicitly include surrogate resource
classes that can be identi�ed independently of the resource a surrogate
instance represents. Models should specify the relationship between a
resource and its surrogate(s).
Related Patterns
• One graph per resource (Dodds and Davis, 2011)
Examples
• Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA)
(Work/Related Textual or Visual Documentation)
• Dublin Core Abstract Model (1:1 Principle)
• Europeana Data Model (EDM)
• Requirement 1: distinction between "provided objects" (painting,
book, movie, archeology site, archival �le, etc.) and their digital
representations.
• Requirement 2: distinction between objects and metadata describing
the object.
• VRA Record Type (Work/Image)
Future Work
LODLAM Patterns aims to create a new way to organize our debates
and discussions about representation standards for cultural heritage
resources that is oriented around problems and solutions rather than
standards and schemas. As LAM professionals navigate the paradigm
shift from traditional representation methods to Linked Data and
Semantic Web contexts, LODLAM Patterns can also provide a useful
tool to crosswalk current domain knowledge.
References
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