FRBRoo-based approach to heterogeneous metadata integration

Abstract

Purpose – This paper seeks to adopt FRBRoo as an ontological approach to integrate heterogeneous metadata, and transform human-understandable format into machine-understandable format for semantic query. Design/methodology/approach – Two cases of use with museum artefacts and literary works were exploited to illustrate how FRBRoo can be used to re-contextualize the semantics of elements and the semantic relationships embedded in those elements. The shared ontology was then RDFized and examples were explored to examine the feasibility of the proposed approach. Findings – FRBRoo can play a role as inter lingua aligning museum and library metadata to achieve heterogeneous metadata integration and semantic query without changing either of the original approaches to fit the other. Research limitations/implications – Exploration of more diverse use cases is required to further align the different approaches of museums and libraries using FRBRoo and make revisions. Practical implications – Solid evidence is provided for the use of FRBRoo in heterogeneous metadata integration and semantic query. Originality/value – This is the first study to elaborate how FRBRoo can play a role as a shared ontology to integrate the heterogeneous metadata generated by museums and libraries. This paper also shows how the proposed approach is distinct from the Dublin Core format crosswalk in re-contextualizing semantic meanings and their relationships, and further provides four new sub-types for mapping description language.