Linking historical collections in an event-based ontology
| Published date | 12 November 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/DLP-02-2018-0005 |
| Pages | 262-275 |
| Date | 12 November 2018 |
| Author | Qing Zou,Eun G. Park |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology,Records management & preservation,Information repositories |
Linking historical collections in an
event-based ontology
Qing Zou and Eun G. Park
McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Abstract
Purpose –This study aimsto explore a way of representing historical collectionsby examining the features
of an event in historicaldocuments and building an event-based ontology model.
Design/methodology/approach –To align with a domain-specific and upper ontology, the Basic
Formal Ontology (BFO) modelis adopted. Based on BFO, an event-based ontology for historical description
(EOHD) is designed. To define events, event-related vocabularies are taken from the Library of Congress’
event types(2012). The three types of history and six kinds of changes are defined.
Findings –The EOHD model demonstrates howto apply the event ontology to biographical sketches of a
creatorhistory to link event types.
Research limitations/implications –The EOHD model has great potentialto be further expanded to
specific eventsand entities through different types of history in a full setof historical documents.
Originality/value –The EOHD provides a framework for modeling and semantically reforming the
relationshipsof historical documents, which can make historical collectionsmore explicitly connected in Web
environments.
Keywords Event, Basic Formal Ontology, BFO, Creator history,
Event Ontology for Historical Description (EOHD), Historical collections
Paper type Technical paper
Introduction
Ontology technologies have greatly transformed separate information resources in such a
way that they are now connected throughout documents within Web environments (Bizer
et al., 2009;Berners-Lee et al.,2001). This is one step closer to building a semantically
linkable document in digital collections. These technologies can have an impact on
organizing, modeling, presenting and disseminating various types of information in
historical collections. However, for humanities scholars and users who often use historical
collections, to some extent, the Web still maintains existing problems related to
unstructured, semi-structured and rarely structured ways of maintaining historical
collections. Presenting historical documents is also complex and heterogeneous, usually
involving a large amount of text.
Features of historical collections
Historical collections refer to sets of documented information that are unique primary
sources with historical, cultural and informational value. Historical collections could be
called digital collections, special collections in libraries, archival collections in archives,
cultural heritage collections in museums or digital humanities, depending on their context.
They are likely very context-specific as they have accumulated over many years.
Documents in a historicalcollection are often locally organized in a non-standardized way in
a regional repository; thus, historical documents are frequently created in silos. The
metadata of historicalcollections is commonly limited to the collection level because theyare
DLP
34,4
262
Received6 February 2018
Revised21 September 2018
Accepted24 September 2018
DigitalLibrary Perspectives
Vol.34 No. 4, 2018
pp. 262-275
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2059-5816
DOI 10.1108/DLP-02-2018-0005
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