Archival and Museum Information as a Component of the Common

Digital Space of Scientific Knowledge

N. Kalenov

, I. Sobolevskaya

and A. Sotnikov

Joint Supercomputer Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Branch of Federal State Institution “Scientific Research

Institute for System Analysis of the Russian Academy of Sciences” (JSCC RAS, Branch of SRISA), 119334, Moscow,

Leninsky Av., 32 a, Russia

Keywords: Scientific Archive, Science Museum, Knowledge Space, Scientific Heritage, Network Technologies, Digital

Libraries, Digital Information Resources, Metadata.

Abstract: The Common Digital Space of Scientific Knowledge (CDSSK), in its modern interpretation, is a

fundamentally new information environment that accumulates knowledge from various fields of science and

is the basis for solving a wide range of problems: from artificial intelligence to the science popularization.

One of the prototypes of the CDSSK model is the digital library "Scientific Heritage of Russia" (DL SHR),

within which methods and means of integrating heterogeneous digital information (including archival and

museum information) related to Russian scientific achievements are being developed. For several years, the

Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ARAN) and the V. I. Vernadsky State Geological Museum

Russian Academy of Sciences (GGM RAS) participated in the development and in the DL SHR development

and filling the DL SHR with digital content of the DL SHR. The paper discusses the metadata profiles adopted

for displaying archival and museum objects in the CDSSK, Provides examples of search and visualization.

1 INTRODUCTION

One of the most important directions in the

development of the information society is the creation

of the Common Digital Space of Scientific Knowledge

(CDSSK) (Antopol'skij A.B., 2019). The

implementation of the CDSSK as an information

environment that accumulates knowledge from various

fields of science will create a basis for solving the

problems of artificial intelligence, education,

popularization of science, preservation and

dissemination of scientific heritage (Savin G.I., 2020).

To provide a multidimensional search for

heterogeneous objects in the CDSSK and navigation

through related resources, it is necessary to define a

metadata set attributes for objects of each type. If we

talk about archives and museums then in each of them

there are automated systems that ensure the solution

of accounting problems, preservation and analysis of

their storage facilities. These automatized systems

(AS) digitally contain a significant portion of the

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5269-0988

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9461-3750

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0137-1255

information required for the CDSSK. Obviously, it is

necessary to use this information when forming the

content of the CDSSK. However, the problem is that

the metadata sets used in professional speakers, on the

one hand, contain information that is not of interest

from the point of view of the CDSSK, on the other

hand, they are presented in special formats, specific

for this type of objects.

In this regard, following tasks arise:

- The task of determining the metadata objects

profiles of archival and museum storage. These

metadata objects profiles should be included in the

CDSSK;

- The task of software development that allows

loading the necessary metadata attributes from the

existing AS of archives and museums into the

structure of the CDSSK.

At the same time, it is necessary to take into

account, on the one hand, the formats of data

presentation adopted in archival and museum practice

/studies, and on the other, the need to integrate digital

144

Kalenov, N., Sobolevskaya, I. and Sotnikov, A.

Archival and Museum Information as a Component of the Common Digital Space of Scientiﬁc Knowledge.

DOI: 10.5220/0010512401440149

In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Data Science, Technology and Applications (DATA 2021), pages 144-149

ISBN: 978-989-758-521-0

copies of archival objects into a single system, taking

into account the requirements of the Semantic WEB

(Starkova YU.S., 2017).

The concepts that make up the CDSSK ontology

are conventionally divided into concepts for:

- Descriptions of the subject area content;

- Formation of any subject area thesaurus;

- Descriptions of thematic collections;

Descriptions of the integrating library content

with data sources from Linked Open Data.

Semantically significant connections are defined

between these groups of concepts. In accordance with

this ontology proposed by (Ataeva O.M., 2018;

Kalenov N.E., 2020), the CDSSK is a collection of

thematic subspaces containing scientific knowledge

in certain science fields. The connection of the

elements of individual subspaces is carried out at the

first ontology level. This level includes, in particular,

the description of universal objects classes, such as

"persons", "organizations", "events" related to many

subspaces, regardless of their thematic affiliation. In

general, the metadata profiles of spatially mapped

objects should include the following minimum set of

attributes:

1. Unique identifier of the object in the CDSSK;

2. The name of the object;

3. Object class (person, organization, event,

archival document, chemical element, etc.);

4. Object view inside the class (in accordance

with custom tables);

5. Dates with which the object is associated;

6. Links to related objects with an indication of

the types of links (in accordance with the typology

adopted in the CDSSK);

7. References to key terms and classification

indices in the system-wide subject ontology

(thesaurus) of the CDSSK;

8. Additional text information that characterizes

a specific object.

With respect to the different types of objects this

list is specified and supplemented.

2 THE ARCHIVAL

INFORMATION

Archival information is an integral part of the

scientific heritage. Without it, it is impossible to

conduct research in the historical, political and other

humanities. Therefore without archival information,

it is impossible to create a full-fledged unified space

of scientific knowledge.

The ISAD Basic International Standard regulates

archival data for Archival Description

(https://clck.ru/RPBZ3).

This standard identifies several basic concepts

used in archiving, including:

- Unit of description. It is a document or series of

documents in any physical form, perceived as a

whole;

Description level. It is the position of the

description unit in the structural hierarchy of the

archive fund.

There are 4 main levels of description:

Founds

Inventories

Cases

Documents.

The standard defines the elements that are

considered essential in the international exchange of

descriptive information:

a) identification code;

b) title;

c) creator;

d) dates;

e) the volume of the unit of description;

f) level of description.

There are 20 more elements related to areas such

as identification, context, content and structure,

access and use, related materials, notes and

description control in addition to the core elements

(Sarkar M., 2020; Moscicka A., 2020).

When specifying the metadata profiles of

archival objects under the guise of an object within

the "archival document" class, the appropriate level

specified above must be indicated. In the case of the

level "document" it needs to specify an additional

document type (for example, letter, protocol,

photograph, etc.). The dates the archived object is

linked can be the dates of transfer of the document

to the archive and the dates of its compilation. An

archival document can be linked with persons and

organizations by links such as "author", "former

owner", "addressee", "actor", etc. The obligatory

link with an organization or a person should be the

"current owner / custodian" . It is also possible to

link an archival document with certain events, but

the specification of these links is described in

additional text information (Ringel S. 2020).

Some of the listed attributes are explicitly present

in the ISAD format (Koch I., 2019). Some of them

can be generated automatically from a set of ISAD

elements (Haki K., 2019). Some attributes (in

particular, the classification indices of the subject

ontology) must be formed using special algorithms

and elements of artificial intelligence.

Archival and Museum Information as a Component of the Common Digital Space of Scientiﬁc Knowledge

145

Today, digital libraries use the Encoded Archival

Description (EAD). EAD is a XML-standard code for

encoding descriptive information about archival

materials, supporting structural presentation and

remote access to detailed hierarchical descriptions of

archival holdings based on ISAD (G) principles.

EAD is used not only by archives, libraries, but

also by museums, national libraries and historical

societies.

When specifying the metadata profiles of archival

documents in the CDSSK, it is necessary to take into

account the developments in the archival "industry",

in particular, the international standard for the

creation of archival authority records - ISAAR (CPF)

(https://goo.su/2iZ7). This standard describes not

only the presentation of archival documents

themselves, but also their links with other objects.

3 MUSEUM INFORMATION

Objects of natural science museums are as much an

integral part of the CDSSK as archival documents.

Collections of natural science orientation contain

colossal volumes of information about natural

objects; both existing and lost (extinct forms of

wildlife, spent mineral deposits, etc.).

Natural science museums, in contrast to art or

other museums based on the results of man-made

creativity, are based on the use of the natural

environment. Therefore, the characteristics of the

environment, represented by objects of different

scales of various origins, are as important information

elements as the object itself.

As a detailed review of the world experience in

the application of standards in museum activities

shows (Muzejnye standarty: mezhdunarodnyj opyt,

2019), there is no unified approach to this problem in

the world. In Russia, the most widespread automated

system used in hundreds of museums of various types

is KAMIS (https://kamis.ru/). This system is focused

on solving a wide range of tasks, from upkeeping of

museum objects inventory record accounting for

museum items, creating catalogs of museums and

ending with restoration processes. The system is

flexible enough with a customizable list of data

elements, which can reach several dozen for one

object. Therefore, there is no need to talk about the

use of specific field names for existing descriptions

of museum objects in the CDSSK.

The specificity of museum objects is manifested

in the types of temporal characteristics and the types

of their connections with other objects. In particular,

for natural science museums a rather important

temporal characteristic is the “collection of samples

date ”, and the connection with the person is the

“collection author ”.

4 IMPLEMENTATION EXAMPLE

The digital library «Scientific Heritage of Russia»

(DL SHR) can act as can act as a prototype of the

CDSSK (Kalenov N.E., 2012). This project is

implemented by a group of scientific organizations of

the Russian Academy of Sciences headed by the Joint

SuperComputer Center of the Russian Academy of

Sciences – Branch of Federal State Institution

“Scientific Research Institute for System Analysis of

the Russian Academy of Sciences” (JSCC RAS). The

DL SHR was created to provide Internet users with

multifaceted information about scientists who made a

significant contribution to the development of various

areas of Russian science in the period from the 18th

to the first quarter of the 20th centuries. Biographical

information on scientists, museum and archival

information (historic/archival documents and

museum items) related to them, as well as

bibliography and full texts of their main publications

were entered (integrated?) into the DL SHR.

During the implementation of the project,

research was carried out related to:

- The formation of digital copies of objects of

various kinds (books, photographs, archival

materials, museum items);

- The definition of the metadata space that unites

them;

- The development of the Library architecture;

- Working out technology of its filling and

provision to users.

As a result of these studies, the selection of a

technical base and technology that meets the quality

and safety requirements for objects to be digitized

was carried out; special software has been developed

for the formation and processing of digital copies,

which guarantees the transfer in a digital copy all the

nuances of the original objects; a fairly universal

ontology of the DL SHR as a whole and its individual

components has been developed. During the

implementation of the project, in which several dozen

organizations participated (including libraries,

museums and the RAS Archive), the technology of

interaction between the participants in filling the

library and monitoring of the technological process of

preparing data in a network mode was tested.

Because of those activities the option of the

distributed (decentralized) preparation of metadata

and digital objects copies, centralized editing and

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146

metadata storage on the serves of the JSCC RAS. A

combination of distributed metadata and centralized

storage of digital copies of objects on the servers of

the JSCC RAS was chosen as the optimal

organizational and technological structure that

ensures the filling of the DL SHR.

Currently, the DL SHR is available to users at

http://e-heritage.1gb.ru.

At the moment, the DL SHR contains information

on more than 6400 scientists and more than 25400

digitized books (Fig. 1)

Figure 1: The main page of the DL SHR site.

5 ARCHIVAL INFORMATION IN

THE DIGITAL LIBRARY

"SCIENTIFIC HERITAGE OF

RUSSIA"

The Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences

(ARAN) (Kalenov N.E., 2013) took an active part in

provisioning the DL SHR with content. Currently,

archival information is available in the DL SHR in the

metadata attributes related to scientists and in the

form of active links (или просто as links) to the

corresponding resources presented on the ARAN

website.

The display of archival information about a

person in the DL SHR is Information about

academician I.I. Schmalhausen is given as an

example of archival information displayed in the DL

SHR. On the page dedicated to him (Fig. 2), along

with general information ("Date of Birth", "Place of

Birth", etc.), there are fields:

On the page dedicated to the selected person,

along with general information ("Date of Birth",

"Place of Birth", etc.), there is a drop-down menu:

1. Curriculum Vitae. This field contains the

biographical information about the scientist.

2. Publications. This field represents the

scholar's bibliography. Each of the publications is an

active link to an electronic copy of the full text of the

publication.

3. Archival information. This field contains the

drop-down menu of archival documents stored in

ARAN. When clicking (expanding the list) on the

selected document, the user is redirected to the ARAN

page to get acquainted with this archive (Fig. 3).

Figure 2: Archival information representation in the

metadata about scientist in the DL SHR.

Figure 3: ARAN page containing the archive of I.I.

Schmalhausen.

Table 1: The distribution of scientists by scientific fields.

Archival information about scientist is presented as links to

ARAN resources.

Science

Abstracting

Total number of

personalities with

links to ARAN

Number of

personalities

with links to

ARAN and date

of birth before

1900

Mathematics,

mechanics

39 21

Physics 53 26

Chemistry 62 47

Biology,

medical

sciences

75 56

Earth sciences 69 52

Technical

science

42 29

Humanitarian

sciences

46 31

Social

Sciences

104 70

Archival and Museum Information as a Component of the Common Digital Space of Scientiﬁc Knowledge

147

Archival material related to 490 Russian scientists

and representing all thematic areas of science is

presented in the DL SHR. In the Table 1 is presented

the distribution of scientists by thematic areas of

science, archival information about which is

presented in the form of links to ARAN resources.

The social sciences in this context include history,

philosophy, legal and political sciences.

As can be seen from the table, archival materials

are fairly evenly distributed among the main scientific

fields.

6 MUSEUM INFORMATION IN

THE DL SHR

More than 260 digital images of objects of natural

science museums are presented in the DL SHR. Of

these, about 100 are digital 3D models (Kalenov N.E.,

Kirillov S.A., Sobolevskaya I.N., Sotnikov A.N.

2020; Sobolevskaya I. N., 2019).

The V. I. Vernadsky State Geological Museum

Russian Academy of Sciences (GGM RAS) bears part

in filling with content the DL SHR.

The set of metadata fields for representing a

museum object was specified in relation to geological

artefacts.

Figure 4 shows an example of the representation

of a geological museum object in the DL SHR.

Figure 4: An example of a geological museum object

representation in DL SHR.

The inclusion of museum objects in the CDSSK

offers a way of using complex links, including

indirect links of these objects with…, in exhibitions

and scientific work.

Figures 5 and 6 show an example of the links

between a geological object and a scientist who has

studied it. Figure 5 shows the shell core of

Perisphinctes stschurowskii. The "Collection Author"

(CA) is an active drop-down manu on A.O.

Mikhalskiy. He is a scientist who was engaged in the

sciences of the Earth and, in particular, ammonites.

Figure 6 shows the page dedicated to information

about A.O. Mikhalsky to which the user gets using

(CA). On the same DL SHR page a user can get

acquainted with biographical information about the

scientist, his works, as well as with museum objects

related to him (to the scientist).

Figure 5: Shell core Perisphinctes stschurowskii.

Figure 6: Page dedicated to information about A.O.

Mikhalsky.

7 CONCLUSION

The experience of operating the DL SHR has

confirmed the effectiveness of organizational,

technological and software solutions, which form its

basis, and the

expediency of transforming the DL SHR

into a Single Digital Space of Knowledge

The importance and relevance of work on

including the resources of archives and museums in

the CDSSK (at the first stage - in the DL SHR as a

prototype of the CDSSK model) is beyond doubt.

The research is carried out by Joint

SuperComputer Center of the Russian Academy of

Sciences – Branch of Federal State Institution

“Scientific Research Institute for System Analysis of

the Russian Academy of Sciences” within the Russian

Foundation for Basic Research RFBR (project 20-07-

00773). The research used the MVS-10P

supercomputer installed at the MSC RAS.

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148

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