A Metadata Model to Organize Cultural Heritage Resources in Heterogeneous Information Environments

Cultural Heritage Information (CHI) is scattered among memory institutions, and connecting them together is an important issue for their continued discovery, access, and use. This study proposes a generalized model named Cultural Heritage in Digital Environments (CHDE), which enables the organizing of both tangible and intangible cultural heritage in heterogeneous information environments. The model collects all related digital resources into one instance, which can be later digested into a single digital archive on the networked environment, based on the One-to-One Principle of Metadata. We specially focus on organizing intangible cultural heritage through their instantiations. The proposed model is mapped to renowned cultural heritage models to identify the component entities and to clarify their strengths and the weaknesses. We use South and Southeast Asian cultural heritage information to evaluate the suitability of this model, which is a novel approach in the region.