Moving from ISAD(G) to a CIDOC CRM-based Linked Data Model in the Portuguese Archives

Abstract

Archives are facing numerous challenges. On the one hand, archival assets are evolving to encompass digitized documents and increasing quantities of born-digital information in diverse formats. On the other hand, the audience is changing along with how it wishes to access archival material. Moreover, the interoperability requirements of cultural heritage repositories are growing. In this context, the Portuguese Archives started an ambitious program aiming to evolve its data model, migrate existing records, and build a new archival management system appropriate to both archival tasks and public access. The overall goal is to have a fine-grained and flexible description, more machine-actionable than the current one. This work describes ArchOnto, a linked open data model for archives, and rules for its automatic population from existing records. ArchOnto adopts a semantic web approach and encompasses the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model and additional ontologies, envisioning interoperability with datasets curated by multiple communities of practice. Existing ISAD(G)-conforming descriptions are being migrated to the new model using the direct mappings provided here. We used a sample of 25 records associated with different description levels to validate the completeness and conformity of ArchOnto to existing data. This work is in progress and is original in several respects: (1) it is one of the first approaches to use CIDOC CRM in the context of archives, identifying problems and questions that emerged during the process and pinpointing possible solutions; (2) it addresses the balance in the model between the migration of existing records and the construction of new ones by archive professionals; and (3) it adopts an open world view on linking archival data to global information sources.