Metadata Model for Organizing Digital Archives of Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage, and Linking Cultural Heritage Information in Digital Space

Background. There are many digital archives in cultural domains, but there is no well-established metadata model which covers both tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Neither is there a well-established metadata model applicable to building digital archives by aggregating existing cultural heritage information. Objectives. The objective of this study is to develop a metadata model for digital archives of diverse cultural resources and dispersed communities, where metadata aggregation from different sources is required. This paper presents a model called Cultural Heritage in Digital Environment (CHDE) for organizing various digital CHI organized as a digital archive. Methods. The CHDE model is created as a generalized metadata model. It clearly distinguishes an intangible cultural heritage entity and its instantiation to model digital archives for intangible cultural heritage like those for tangible cultural heritage. The CHDE model is defined using the One-to-One Principle of metadata, and is used to clearly identify the relationships between metadata and the entities described by the metadata. Finally, this paper shows the application of the CHDE with use cases of cultural heritage objects. Results. CHDE enables the organization of digital cultural heritage information related to tangible and intangible cultural heritage. It identifies the physical and digital information environment of cultural heritage, and further supports the modeling of digital archives built by aggregating cultural heritage information on the Web. Contributions. This novel approach will benefit memory institutions which have insufficient resources to create digital resources such as those in South and Southeast Asia. Also, intangible cultural heritage organization through instantiation is a useful approach.