Integrated access to cultural heritage information pieces in Iran over Imam Reza's 4th Zarih (burial chamber) as a sample

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to offer an example of how ontology, such as CIDOC, can be turned into a format from the perspective of an object. In fact, it illustrates the possible semantic analysis of an object description into a view neutral machine‐interpretable form. The aim is to show that a museum object located in a museum can be described in detail and then related to other information objects located in other memory institutions such as libraries and archives.Design/methodology/approachStudying different documents, all the information about Imam Reza's Zarih 4th was derivated. Then the most important were listed and represented in detail, according to CIDOC CRM entities.FindingsThe figures explicitly reveal the existing semantic correlations between the heterogeneous cultural heritage information in various memory institutions, such as Organization of Libraries, Museums and Documents Centre of Astan Quds Razavi.Originality/valueThe authors capture the knowledge from different resources and relate them in a semantic description with the aid of a semantic conceptual model like CIDOC CRM, to show more effective information integration in a cultural institution such as Organization of Libraries, Museums and Documents Centre of Astan Quds Razavi, in order to provide unified access to collection‐level information.

Linked Data and Cultural Heritage

“…The European Union was directly involved (beyond funding) in two projects [30,31]. Three projects involved non-governmental public bodies [27,32,33] and five involved private companies [23,27,32,34,35]. Public libraries were represented in one case, in which two public libraries contributed [23].…”

“…Public libraries were represented in one case, in which two public libraries contributed [23]. Two projects involved private or special libraries [36,33], and one involved a private art foundation [37].…”

“…This theme was taken in articles which value linked data for its ability to make their collections visible or to bring attention to their institution. This includes studies which centred around a particular collection, rather than being focused primarily on the technology [17,27,33].…”

A multi-layer framework for semantic modeling

“…Despite the importance of computer science in the development of tools for information retrieval, information science has over time also provided reference models that have become efficient means for retrieving information. Some examples are CIDOC-CRMa reference model applied to model information in cultural heritage settings (Farrokhnia, 2013;ICM, 2019); FBRB/RDAa model dedicated to modeling library resources (Hider, 2009(Hider, , 2017Hider and Liu, 2013); faceted analysisan approach tailored to characterize and contextualize objects [1] (Hjørland, 2013); hierarchical modelsthat enable contextualization of objects and establishing relations between them in a domain[2] (Bikakis et al, 2017;Kamdar et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2016;Beydoun et al, 2011); conceptual maps, ontologies and thesaurithat are schema for high-level abstraction and characterization of domains (Hjørland, 2008(Hjørland, , 2016Schneider and Borlund, 2004;Shiri et al, 2002).…”

“…a car, a table, and a house), or abstract (an article, a book, a copy of a newspaper, a song, etc.). Accordingly, from an information science perspective, the document (physical or abstract object; ICM; Dijkshoorn et al, 2018;Farrokhnia, 2013) is the final goal of any information model or search tool (Beghtol, 1986;Gorrel et al, 2009;Hider, 2018;Hjørland, 2016).…”