Semantic Transformation and Use of Cultural Data

Abstract

Cultural content and cultural assets are increasingly seen as invaluable drivers for education, entertainment, tourism, knowledge, and shared memory initiatives. As such, cultural information, as stored in cultural institutions such as museums, archives, and specialized libraries is increasingly demanded by several actors, from public policy, tourism, app developers and software companies, schools and the citizen at large. To satisfy the needs of such a large spectrum of consumers and end users, the information must be format independent, multi-lingual, multi-purpose, and make use of standards, norms and national and international recommendations. In this is paper we describe our past and current efforts to develop cultural information systems that can satisfy those requirements and those of the specialized public, such as scientists and curators. We describe an inventory and content management system and the conceptual and architectural choices that were made to allow its evolution, standards' compliance and multi-purpose use.