Interlinking the Intrinsic Value: Re-Conceptualization of Organizing Cultural Heritage Using Smart Data

Abstract

This paper introduces the Cultural Heritage Conceptual Framework (CHCF), a smart data–driven model designed to semantically interlink cultural heritage resources across diverse institutions. Although cultural heritage comprises vast and heterogeneous social assets curated by various institutions, their intellectual and intrinsic values often remain underutilized because of the traditional unit-based rigid metadata approaches. Drawing on the concept of smart data, this study constructed a conceptual framework named Lead Data, which consists of three core categories such as Area, Subject, and Collection, and applied semantic facet structure to enhance the interlinking of cultural heritage resources at the metadata level. By extracting conceptually significant elements from existing metadata standards and organizing them as facets, the CHCF can function as a mediator that interoperates the metadata about cultural heritage resources. This smart data-based framework is expected to support advanced knowledge discovery, support interdisciplinary research, and improves accessibility within cultural heritage environments.