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.