“Transcultural Metadata”An exploration of the way our metadata is culturally limitedAgnes DoberUniversität Heidelberg, Heidelberg Research Architectureagnes.dober@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de | agnes.dober@tetragir.com

IntroductionIn the cultural heritage community, metadata schemata for documenting non-textual objectssuch as LIDO and VRA Core 4.0 are becoming increasingly important. Meta-aggregators likethe Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek and Europeana.eu allow the public to discover works from thecomfort of their screens, while research infrastructures like the DARIAH-DE Data FederationArchitecture support researchers. These schemata are envisioned to be flexible enough to recordthe diverse collections of Europe, but if we wish to include collections and researchers from areasof study that do not deal exclusively with objects from the western cultural sphere, they mustbe suitable to different types of information, lest they be omitted. That is, careful considerationmust be given to the metadata schemata themselves, and how they shape our understandingsthrough the availability and correct labeling of data.

Main Objectives and IssuesThe work “Cataloging Cultural Objects - a Guide to Describing Cultural Works and TheirImages”(CCO) [1] provides a data content standard for catalogers of cultural heritage, and isfurther supported by the online examples provided on CCO Commons [2]. A completed projectof the Heidelberg Research Architecture at Universität Heidelberg has focused on providing theCCO Commons examples encoded in the VRA Core 4.0 XML metadata schema. This was donewith the intent of aiding comprehension through these XML examples, later to be published onthe CCO website itself, in the university’s institutional repository for research data, HeiDATA[3], and on GitHub [4].

During this, several ways were noted in which metadata schemata for documenting non-textualobjects such as LIDO and VRA Core 4.0 need further elements when it comes to non-Westernobjects. I will demonstrate in this poster through an example how these problems were solvedthrough the Cluster extension. My wider aim is to raise awareness of how single metadatastandards are limited, and how data may be lost through the cracks.

Conclusions• Current schemata utilize an xml:lang for recording foreign language variations, but this is

unsuitable for languages not using the Latin script, as it cannot encode script or transliter-ation. For the project using the VRA Core 4.0 XML, an extension was developed to allowus to record the language (lang, following ISO 639-2B), the precise writing system (script,following ISO 15924) and the romanization scheme (transliteration).

• Non-Gregorian calendar dates currently cannot be encoded. In the extension, we separatedthe dates into an alternativeNotation tag and a simple date tag, allowing us to record thesefreely.

• Data from inscriptions are varied, and bring up several problems in encoding:– the agent can differ from the object’s;– there may be several different agents;– a signature may be a seal;– calligraphic style;– issue of language and original script.

References[1] Baca, Murtha et al. 2006. Cataloging Cultural Objects: CCO ; a Guide to Describing Cul-

tural Works and Their Images. Chicago: American Library Association. Available onlineat: http://cco.vrafoundation.org/index.php/toolkit/cco_pdf_version/.

[2] Visual Resources Association. ”Examples.” CCO Commons. http://cco.vrafoundation.org/index.php/ Date accessed: 2018.07.27.

[3] https://heidata.uni-heidelberg.de/[4] Arnold, Matthias, Tobi Krebs, Simon Grüning, Matthias Guth and Agnes Dober.

”CCO Samples” GitHub - exc-asia-and-europe/CCO-Samples. https://github.com/exc-asia-and-europe/CCO-Samples Date accessed: 2018.07.27.

AcknowledgementsThis work was supported by the HCTS at the Universität Heidelberg. I would also like to thankMatthias Arnold, who not only initially assigned me to this project, but has generously givenhis time to encourage and guide the making of this poster.

CREDIT: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA),「富嶽三十六景　神奈川沖浪裏 Under the Wave offKanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji(Fugaku sanjūrokkei) ca. 1830–32; Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, Tokyo (Edo) 1760–1849 Tokyo (Edo)); Polychromewoodblock print, ink and color on paper, 25.7 x 37.9 cm; JP1847.

Scripts and transliteration

<titleSet><title pref="true" lang="jpn" script="Jpan" type="creator">富嶽三十六景↪→ 神奈川沖浪裏</title>

<title pref="false" lang="jpn" script="Latn" transliteration="hepburn"↪→ type="other">Fugaku sanjūrokkei Kanagawa oki nami ura</title>

<title pref="false" lang="eng" script="Latn" type="translated">Thirty-↪→ six Views of Mount Fuji Under the Wave off Kanagawa</title>

</titleSet>

Alternative calendrical dates

<dateSet><date type="creation">

<earliestDate><date circa="true" type="about">1830</date><alternativeNotation>文政13・天保元年 (Bunsei 13/Tenpō 1)</↪→ alternativeNotation>

</earliestDate><latestDate>

<date circa="true" type="about">1832</date><alternativeNotation>天保３年 (Tenpō 3)</alternativeNotation>

</latestDate></date>

</dateSet>

Inscriptions

<inscriptionSet><inscription>

<author refid="69033717" vocab="viaf">Katsushika, Hokusai</author><position>top left</position><text lang="jpn" script="Jpan" type="signature">前北斎為一筆</text><text lang="jpn" script="Latn" transliteration="hepburn" type="↪→ signature">Zen Hokusai Iitsu hitsu</text>

<text lang="eng" script="Latn" type="translation">From the brush of↪→ Iitsu, formerly Hokusai</text>

</inscription></inscriptionSet>