Linked open data per la valorizzazione di collezioni culturali: il dataset mythLOD

Abstract: The formal representation of cultural metadata has always been a challenge, considering both the heterogeneity of cultural objects and the need to document the interpretive act exercised by experts. This article provides an overview of the revalorization of the digital collection Mythologiae in Linked Open Data format. The research aims to explore the data of a collection of artworks (Mythologiae) by promoting the potential of the Semantic Web, focusing particularly on the formal representation of the association of cultural objects with literary sources, as realized by experts, also documenting their interpretations. The workflow consisted of defining the data model, cleaning and disambiguating the data, converting it (from tabular structure to graph), and conducting testing activities (particularly expert domain review of the dataset through competency questions and data visualizations). The result is the mythLOD platform, which presents the dataset and detailed research documentation. Additionally, the platform hosts two data visualization spaces (the online catalogue and a data storytelling experiment on the case study of the Aeneid) that enrich the project documentation as user-friendly test units for the dataset and constitute an additional project documentation tool and exploration of the collection.