Personal archives in linked open data: the conceptual model as an integration tool in GLAMs

Abstract

Archival records produced by individuals are a singularity in the cultural heritage field. In detail, these archives are a special typology, useful to think about linked open data (LOD) as a strategy for enhancing a deep interconnection in the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) system. Two are, in these archival collections, the interesting features to stress: the heterogeneity of documents (both by type and support) and the suite of relationships, even latent, that these documents would carry out (between people, between a person and the archival collection, and, in particular, between a person and other related resources). Ontologies are a decisive step in building LOD. Though not explicitly included in the ‘5 stars’ by Tim Berners Lee, conceptual models are able to provide the semantic deepness needed to enhance the domain description, by giving value to typed link and extending, as a result, the network of interconnection.
The project realized on the archive by Federico Zeri, held at the University of Bologna, can be a useful starting point for rethinking the archival description in a GLAM environment.