A multi-layer metadata schema for digital folklore collections

Digital folklore collections are valuable sources for studying the cultural and oral tradition of a country. The main difficulty in managing such collections is material heterogeneity (handwritten texts, photographs, 3D objects, sound recordings etc.) that imposes different digitization, description and maintenance practices. A multi-layer metadata model for the description of a digital folklore collection is presented. The proposed meta-data policy considers a collection as a hierarchy of entities and combines different metadata schemas for the management of each entity. The metadata model integrates elements from different metadata schemas ensuring efficient information recovery from all structural levels. Furthermore, interoperability between the used metadata schemas is discussed and a Topic Maps model is presented as an approach for developing mappings.