The Development Of Cultural Heritage Repository Based On Ontology

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Malaysia is known for its traditional cultural heritage. This is reflected from a diverge range of practices and ways of life of its people. Nevertheless, the traditional cultural heritage has been gradually forgotten overtime. The information related to traditional cultural heritage can be obtained from various sources and locations but is inconsistent thus resulting in information seeking difficulties. A repository of cultural heritage was constructed to overcome the problem. The repository was built based on ontology which enable semantic knowledge representation and searching. The ontology consists of tangible objects that are listed as national heritage objects by the National Heritage Department (JWN). Additional information is also collected from various sources, including the National Library, the National Museum, the history books, articles and online references. Classes for each object was identified using middle-out approach. An information retrieval system prototype was constructed to test the effectiveness of information management and access. The evaluation of the prototype shows that the ontology has improved the information management and information searching of tangible heritage. This cultural heritage repository could be extended as a main hub of national cultural heritage management and access.