FRBR-ML: A FRBR-based framework for semantic interoperability

Metadata related to cultural items such as literature, music and movies is a valuable resource that is currently exploited in many applications and services based on semantic web technologies. A vast amount of such information has been created by memory institutions in the last decades using different standard or ad hoc schemas, and a main challenge is to make this legacy data accessible as reusable semantic data. On one hand, this is a syntactic problem that can be solved by transforming to formats that are compatible with the tools and services used for semantic aware services. On the other hand, this is a semantic problem. Simply transforming from one format to another does not automatically enable semantic interoperability and legacy data often needs to be reinterpreted as well as transformed. The conceptual model in the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, initially developed as a conceptual framework for library standards and systems, is a major step towards a shared semantic model of the products of artistic and intellectual endeavor of mankind. The model is generally accepted as sufficiently generic to serve as a conceptual framework for a broad range of cultural heritage metadata. Unfortunately, the existing large body of legacy data makes a transition to this model difficult. For instance, most bibliographic data is still only available in various MARC-based formats which is hard to render into reusable and meaningful semantic data. Making legacy bibliographic data accessible as semantic data is a complex problem that includes interpreting and transforming the information. In this article, we present our work on transforming and enhancing legacy bibliographic information into a representation where the structure and semantics of the FRBR model is explicit.