The Open Language Archives Community (OLAC) for Ethnolinguistic Collections
Abstract
Finding cultural heritage materials related to specific collections is still a research challenge. In this presentation, I discuss the relevance of the Open Language Archives Community metadata application profile for archival collections, focusing on how discovery potential can be increased. OLAC is built upon the Dublin Core foundation and is used by at least 65 archives with cultural heritage sound collections. The Open Language Archives Community provides a free aggregator which allows its users to search for cultural heritage materials by language across archives. In many ways OLAC is like the Virtual Language Observatory or Europeana aggregators but focused on language based materials. In this presentation, I showcase some of the background technology supporting the engagement experience. I present a brief overview of the metadata required by the application profile beyond elements found in the Dublin Core standard, followed by how a well described record covering both a digitized field recording and its original analogue source material might look using the OLAC application profile.
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Hugh Paterson III
Collaborative Scholar
I specialize in bespoke research at the intersection of Linguistics, Law, Languages, and Technology; specifically utility and life-cycle management for information products in these spaces.