Rule‐based metadata interoperation in heterogeneous digital libraries

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to describe a system to support querying across distributed digital libraries created in heterogeneous metadata schemas, without requiring the availability of a global schema.Design/methodology/approachThe advantages and weaknesses of ontology based applications were investigated and have justified the utility of inferential rules in expressing complex relations between metadata terms in different metadata schemas. A process for combining ontologies and rules for specifying complex relations between metadata schemas were designed. The process was collapsed into a set of working phases and provides examples to illustrate how to interrelate two similar bibliographic ontology fragments for further query reformulation.FindingsEquipping ontologies with inferencing power can help describe more complex relations between metadata terms. This approach is critical for properly interpreting queries from one ontology to another.Research limitations/implicationsA prototype system was built based on examples instead of practical experience.Practical implicationsThe approach assumes that relations between metadata sets, or ontologies in the approach, are provided by domain experts with/without ontology tools.Originality/valueA new approach has been proposed for facilitating heterogeneous metadata interoperation in digital libraries as a way of empowering ontologies with rich reasoning capabilities. The traditional approach assumes a global schema controlled by a central or virtual server to provide mapping between local and external metadata schemas. A more flexible and dynamic environment was studied, i.e. P2P‐based digital libraries, where peers may join and leave freely.

Ontology and semantic rules in document dispatching

“…The SWRL is an emerging technology developed to address above difficulties (Ding and Sølvberg, 2007). SWRL is based on a combination of OWL and rule markup language.…”

Interoperability models in digital libraries: an overview

“…Information is a basic human need, and civilization advances when people are able to apply the right information at the right time (Fox and Marchionini, 1998). Therefore digital libraries (DLs) in the current age, as an effective device in the progress of human civilization, should enable any citizen to access all human knowledge anytime and anywhere, in an efficient and effective way, by overcoming barriers of distance, language, and culture and by using multiple Internet‐connected devices (DELOS, 2001; Ding and Solvberg, 2007). In fact, DLs are like islands of order in a sea of chaos and this point is a major for rejecting the claim that the Worldwide Web is simply one big DL.…”