Automatic Heritage Metadata Enrichment with Historic Events

Most digitised and online available objects from GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) can be browsed through a predefined set of formal metadata, such as its creator, year of creation, and type of material. Standards for metadata management and exchange have matured and are being adopted widely. They enable intra-collection search and exploration, and are also main drivers behind supporting domain and cross-boundary access to collections. However, these formal metadata often do not give access to information pertaining to the content of the object, such as its topic, or what is depicted. This information is often given through textual descriptions which are mostly only accessible through keyword search. Keyword search is limited in the sense that it does not facilitate sorting, or retrieving objects whose descriptions contain terms that are synonymous to the search term. This paper provides results of an interdisciplinary research project, Agora, that is taking collection access one step further by enabling users to search and browse museum collections through the content descriptions of objects in a structured way. The three-year Agora project is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research and brings together computer scientists, cultural heritage experts, and humanities researchers.