Data aggregation lab: an experimental framework for data aggregation in cultural heritage

Data aggregation lab: an experimental framework for data aggregation in cultural heritage
Nuno Freire
International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2020) pp. 315 - 324
This paper describes the Data Aggregation Lab software, a system that implements the metadata aggregation workflow of cultural heritage, based on the underlying concepts and technologies of the Web of Data. These aggregation technologies can fulfil the functional requirements for metadata harvesting in cultural heritage and at the same time allow cultural heritage data to be globally interoperable with internet search engines and the Web of Data. The Data Aggregation Lab provides a framework to support several research activities within the Europeana network, such as conducting case studies, providing reference implementations, and supporting technology adoption. It provides working implementations for metadata aggregation methods with which our research has obtained positive results. These methods apply linked data, Schema.org, IIIF, Sitemaps and RDF-related technologies for innovation in data aggregation, data analysis and data conversion for cultural heritage data. The software is available for reuse and is open-sourced.