Interoperability of Oral History Metadata: An Ontological Model

This article presents the metadata characteristics of oral history collections and the challenges faced when attempting to provide long-term access to audio or video recordings. We propose an ontological model combining the International Committee for Documentation Conceptual Reference Model (CIDOC CRM) from the cultural heritage field with European Broadcasting Union Core (EBUCore) from the European audiovisual community. We form a mapping methodology with the goal of combining the strongest attributes from these two standards. The goal of this research is to generate a conceptual model for the description of oral history interviews in order to reveal the entities participating in the interviews, their semantics, and their relationships. The proposed model enables the meaningful exchange of information of audiovisual collections and their integration with other cultural heritage collections in the online environment.