Ontologies and Digital Libraries Nicholas C. Jackson & Erin Elliot What is an Ontology “ What exists is that which can be represented! ontology is the study of what is real, what is reality, and or what existence” (Gruber,1). “An ontology is an explicit description of a domain; concepts, properties and attributes of concepts, constraints on properties and attributes, individuals” (Noy, 2). Ontology Engineering “ Defining terms in the domain and relation among them. Defining concepts in the domain (classes), arranging the concepts in a hierarchy (subclasses-superclasses hierarchy), defining which attributes and properties classes can have and constraints on their values, defining individuals and filling in values.” (Noy, 3). PRATT Uses in digital libraries “ The ontology enables concept-based searching that can improve precision of results far beyond common keyword matching” “The ontologies has the potential to offer navigation support that would facilitate the seeking process…” It “provide a conceptual structure that” organization and arrangement information (2006, Patuelli, 4). Ontology vs. Vocabulary, Taxonomy, and Thesauri “ A controlled vocabulary is a list of terms. A taxonomy is a collection of controlled vocabulary terms organized into a hierarchical structure. A thesaurus is a networked collection of controlled vocabulary terms. A formal ontology is a controlled vocabulary expressed in an ontology representation language” (Jernst, 1). PRATT Jernst. (2003). What are the difference between a vocabulary, a taxonomy, a thesaurus, an ontology, and a meta-model? McGuinness, D. L. (2003). Ontologies Come of Age. Spinning the Semantic Web: Bringing the World wide Web to Its Full Potential. MIT Press. Marcum, . 2002. Noy, N. F. McGuinness, D. L. (2000) Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology. Stanford University. James W. (2002) Beyond Visual Culture: The Challenge of Visual Ecology . Portal: Libraries and the Academy, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 189-206. Noy, N. F., Ontology Engineering for the semantic web and beyond. Pattuelli, M.C. (2006). Context for content: Shaping learning objects and modeling a domain ontology from the teachers' perspective. In Blandford A. & Gow, J. (Eds.). Proceedings of the Workshop on Digital Libraries in the Context of Users' Broader Activities (DL-CUBA), pp. 23-27. JCDL 2006, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. http://www.isi.edu/isd/LOOM/LOOM-HOME.html “ The rise of the digital library is an important step in the development of the library as a cultural resource” (Marcum, 2002, 201). Digital Library? “ the use of computers to store library materials appearing in electronic (digital) format.” Digital records of collections “encoded in order to be stored, retrieved, and read by computer to collect, organize, preserve, and access information and knowledge records in digital form.” UMDL Ontology- http://www-personal.umich.edu/~peterw/Ontology/Beethoven/demo.html UMDL Ontology- http://www-personal.umich.edu/~peterw/Ontology/Beethoven/demo.html McGuinness, D. L. (2003). Ontologies Come of Age. Spinning the Semantic Web: Bringing the World wide Web to Its Full Potential. MIT Press. dog mammal animal rabid dog sick animal disease rabies rabid animal has has has