Logo
ScienceStack
Table of Contents
Fetching ...
Sign In

CHAD-KG: A Knowledge Graph for Representing Cultural Heritage Objects and Digitisation Paradata

Sebastian Barzaghi, Arianna Moretti, Ivan Heibi, Silvio Peroni

TL;DR

The paper tackles the challenge of representing cultural heritage objects and their digitisation workflows as machine-actionable linked data. It proposes CHAD-KG and CHAD-AP, built on CIDOC-CRM, CRMdig, LRMoo, and Getty AAT, and materialised via a Morph-KGC-based pipeline from two tabular datasets. The work demonstrates a real-world Digital Twin use case for the Aldrovandi exhibition, providing a SPARQL endpoint, a static site, open documentation, and CC0 licensing, illustrating a reproducible workflow for CH data. It also discusses limitations and future extensions to broaden coverage of acquisition and digitisation processes and to enhance frontend usability and interoperability.

Abstract

This paper presents CHAD-KG, a knowledge graph designed to describe bibliographic metadata and digitisation paradata of cultural heritage objects in exhibitions, museums, and collections. It also documents the related data model and materialisation engine. Originally based on two tabular datasets, the data was converted into RDF according to CHAD-AP, an OWL application profile built on standards like CIDOC-CRM, LRMoo, CRMdig, and Getty AAT. A reproducible pipeline, developed with a Morph-KGC extension, was used to generate the graph. CHAD-KG now serves as the main metadata source for the Digital Twin of the temporary exhibition titled \emph{The Other Renaissance - Ulisse Aldrovandi and The Wonders Of The World}, and other collections related to the digitisation work under development in a nationwide funded project, i.e. Project CHANGES (https://fondazionechanges.org). To ensure accessibility and reuse, it offers a SPARQL endpoint, a user interface, open documentation, and is published on Zenodo under a CC0 license. The project improves the semantic interoperability of cultural heritage data, with future work aiming to extend the data model and materialisation pipeline to better capture the complexities of acquisition and digitisation, further enrich the dataset and broaden its relevance to similar initiatives.

CHAD-KG: A Knowledge Graph for Representing Cultural Heritage Objects and Digitisation Paradata

TL;DR

The paper tackles the challenge of representing cultural heritage objects and their digitisation workflows as machine-actionable linked data. It proposes CHAD-KG and CHAD-AP, built on CIDOC-CRM, CRMdig, LRMoo, and Getty AAT, and materialised via a Morph-KGC-based pipeline from two tabular datasets. The work demonstrates a real-world Digital Twin use case for the Aldrovandi exhibition, providing a SPARQL endpoint, a static site, open documentation, and CC0 licensing, illustrating a reproducible workflow for CH data. It also discusses limitations and future extensions to broaden coverage of acquisition and digitisation processes and to enhance frontend usability and interoperability.

Abstract

This paper presents CHAD-KG, a knowledge graph designed to describe bibliographic metadata and digitisation paradata of cultural heritage objects in exhibitions, museums, and collections. It also documents the related data model and materialisation engine. Originally based on two tabular datasets, the data was converted into RDF according to CHAD-AP, an OWL application profile built on standards like CIDOC-CRM, LRMoo, CRMdig, and Getty AAT. A reproducible pipeline, developed with a Morph-KGC extension, was used to generate the graph. CHAD-KG now serves as the main metadata source for the Digital Twin of the temporary exhibition titled \emph{The Other Renaissance - Ulisse Aldrovandi and The Wonders Of The World}, and other collections related to the digitisation work under development in a nationwide funded project, i.e. Project CHANGES (https://fondazionechanges.org). To ensure accessibility and reuse, it offers a SPARQL endpoint, a user interface, open documentation, and is published on Zenodo under a CC0 license. The project improves the semantic interoperability of cultural heritage data, with future work aiming to extend the data model and materialisation pipeline to better capture the complexities of acquisition and digitisation, further enrich the dataset and broaden its relevance to similar initiatives.
Paper Structure (15 sections, 7 figures)

This paper contains 15 sections, 7 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related work
  3. The Cultural Heritage Acquisition and Digitisation Knowledge Graph (CHAD-KG)
  4. Data Model
  5. Materialisation Pipeline
  6. Mapping Files.
  7. Configuration file.
  8. User-defined functions.
  9. Launch script.
  10. Resource publishing and access
  11. Discussion
  12. Conclusions
  13. Resource availability statement.
  14. Acknowledgments.
  15. Disclosure of Interests.

Figures (7)

  • Figure 1: A diagram of the CHAD-AP Object Module (OM).
  • Figure 2: A diagram of the CHAD-AP Process Module (PM).
  • Figure 3: The 3D digitisation process, an inherently multidisciplinary procedure, involving multiple actors with distinct roles and expertise (3D digitisation, technical, and domain). At each stage, one or several actors (grey boxes) are involved in the production of new data, making coordinated collaboration essential for effective metadata management.
  • Figure 4: The main components and additional customisations that are part of the Morph-KGC extension used to construct CHAD-KG.
  • Figure 5: The number of times each model is reused within CHAD-KG.
  • ...and 2 more figures