Direct representation knowledgebases can enhance and even provide an alternative to document-centered digital libraries. Here we consider realist semantic modeling of everyday activities and infrastructures in such knowledgebases. Because we want to integrate a wide variety of topics, a collection of ontologies (a foundry) and a range of other knowledge resources are needed. We first consider modeling the routine procedures that support human activities and technologies. Next, we examine the interactions of technologies with aspects of social organization. Then, we consider approaches and issues for developing and validating explanations of the relationships among various entities.In [1] and related studies we explored indexing digitized historical newspapers. It was difficult to index the articles for retrieval or, even, to unambiguously identify what text should be treated as an article. Thus, we proposed the development of knowledge-rich "community models" to improve retrieval. Many aspects of infrastructure associated with everyday activities and infrastructure generally can be described with such community models. Such models would cover both tangible and intangible cultural heritage such as pottery, clothing, dance, and religious traditions.This work is parallel to a proposal we have made for direct representation of scientific research results [4]. However, there are additional challenges for descriptions of culture and history because of the lack of consensus about the definitions for social entities and because there are disagreements about the details of cultures and histories. Nonetheless, as information scientists, we believe that it is useful to develop frameworks for articulating and exploring the possibilities. Ultimately such frameworks should support tools both for the public and for scholars.

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