ModRef Project (Modelling, Repository, Digital Culture) gathers a set of projects
from laboratory Labex Past in Present: history,
heritage, remembrance - Labex Les Passés dans le Présent: histoire,
patrimoine, mémoires (See http://passes-present.eu/)
from the University of Paris Nanterre and involves several organisms, such as:
- MoDyCo (Modelling, Dynamic, Corpus) : http://www.modyco.fr/fr/
- BDIC (International Library of Contemporary Documentation - Bibliothèque de la Documentation Internationale Contemporaine) : http://www.bdic.fr/
- MAE (House of Archeology and Ethnology - Maison de L'Archéologie et de L'Ethnologie) : http://www.mae.u-paris10.fr/
- ArScAn (Archeology and Antique Science - UMR 7041 - Archéologie et Sciences de l'Antiquité) : http://www.mae.u-paris10.fr/arscan/
ModRef goal is to provide Labex's projects with a digital expertise as well as figuring
out a Proof of Concept (POC) concerning "linked open data"
and modelling using references, in order to encourage
discussions over issues related to data migration to the web semantic by creating
and exploiting "triplestores" (collections or datawarehouses of RDF files).
The CIDOC-CRM norm (see http://www.cidoc-crm.org/) has been chosen
since it is currently the reference for the semantic description of museographic or
cultural heritage data. An OWL implementation of the CIDOC-CRM by the University of
Erlangen-Nuremberg is available at the following address: http://www.erlangen-crm.org/.
Three projects have been selected for the Proof Of Concept:
- CDLI (Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative): Digital museum on antique documents in cuneiform writing (see http://www.cdli.ucla.edu)
- ObjMythArcheo: Antique archaeological objects with mythological iconography (see http://www.limc-france.fr and http://medaillesetantiques.bnf.fr)
- BiblioNum: Digital library on history of France during the 20th century (see http://www.argonnaute-u.paris10.fr)
Table. Comparing data for the Proof Of Concept of ModRef
| |
CDLI |
ObjMythArcheo-LIMC |
BiblioNum-BDIC |
| Languages |
English |
French-English |
French |
| Size (Texts) |
300 Mo |
100 Mo |
100 Mo |
| Data Number |
313 332 objects - 105 000 exposed |
17 424 objects - 8250 exposed |
77 collections - 62 392 files |
| Logical Structure |
Database of type spreadsheet |
Relational database |
XML-EAD |
| Elements number of logical structure |
1 table of 61 attributes |
59 tables |
146 XML-EAD elements |
Moving data into triplestores involves different steps:
- data preparating (study and structural description of data),
- data semantic modelling and mapping (or matching or alignment),
- creating triplestores - migrating data into triplestores,
- publishing and visualizing triplestores,
- exploring and querying triplestores
using general forms and "end point sparql" (interface for sparql queries execution).
Hence, the main issues are (1) moving from non-structured or semi-structured data
(notebook, books, html) to structured data (spreadsheets, relational databases, XML files)
and then, (2) moving those structured data into semantic data (RDF files) in order to improve
the sharing, the exchange and the discovery of new knowledge.
On the other hand, various projects around the world work on the migration of data into
triplestores (CIDOC-CRM or not), such as:
- The British Museum (see http://collection.britishmuseum.org/),
which is a museum on history and culture located at London (UK)
and that uses the CIDOC-CRM
- The Yale Center for British Art that uses the CIDOC-CRM.
See https://britishart.yale.edu/collections/using-collections/technology/linked-open-data
- Arches
(see http://www.getty.edu/conservation/our_projects/field_projects/arches/),
which is a collaboration between the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI)
and the World Monuments Fund (WMF) on immovable cultural heritage (monuments, bridges)
and that uses the CIDOC-CRM
- Biblissima (see http://www.biblissima-condorcet.fr/), which works on french
written cultural heritage of Middle Age and Renaissance and that uses the CIDOC-CRM
-
- DBPedia (see http://www.dbpedia.org/sparql), which is an online
encyclopedia
and that does not use the CIDOC-CRM norm but various metadata languages, such as:
dbpedia, foaf, umbel, schema.org, dublin core, geo
- Nakala (see http://www.nakala.fr/sparql), which is a service to store,
document and publish data
and that does not use the CIDOC-CRM norm but various metadata languages, such as:
foaf, skos, dublin core, vcard
- Symogih (see http://www.symogih.org/sparql), which works on
history information
and that does not use the CIDOC-CRM norm but various metadata languages, such as:
symogih, example.org, geo