Towards Online Accessibility of Valuable Phenomena of the Bulgarian Folklore Heritage Radoslav Pavlov 1 Konstantin Rangochev 1 Desislava Paneva-Marinova 1 Maxim Goynov 1 Detelin Luchev 2 1 Institute of Mathematics and Informatics-BAS 2 Ethnographic Institute with Museum -BAS International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies June 2010, Sofia, Bulgaria

Presentation overview Intangible Cultural Heritage - documentation and archiving National research project: “Knowledge Technologies for Creation of Digital Presentation and Significant Repositories of Folklore Heritage” (FolkKnow) Digital libraries Bulgarian folklore digital library: services and functionalities Conclusions and future works

Intangible Cultural Heritage Documentation and archiving on: Magnetic records (tapes), audio cassette records, photographic films, photos, papers, VHS, Betamax, etc. traditionally saved in drawers and boxes Problems arising: Threatened by natural destruction, because of expired period of usage Disappearing of reader devices (Tape recorders, Cassette recorders, Video recorders, Dictaphones, etc.)

Intangible Cultural Heritage Digitization initiatives: “Yuper” project ( “Folklore Motives and Anthologies” project ( “WebFolk Bulgaria” project “Living Human Treasures” project ( “Bulgarian folklore and traditions” ( folklore.com/news.php) folklore.com/news.php

FolkKnow project National project: “Knowledge Technologies for Creation of Digital Presentation and Significant Repositories of Folklore Heritage” (FolkKnow, contract number: IO /2006) Supported by National Science Fund of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science Partners: Institute of Mathematics and Informatics - BAS, Institute for Folklore-BAS, Veliko Tarnovo University Module 3: “Development of Digital Libraries and Information Portal with Virtual Exposition - Bulgarian Folklore Heritage”

FolkKnow project

Why to use digital libraries? “Digital Libraries should enable any citizen to access all human knowledge any time and anywhere, in a friendly, multi-modal, efficient, and affective way, by overcoming barriers of distance, language, and culture and by using multiple Internet-connected devices” (“Digital Libraries: The Future Directions for European Research Programme”, Brainstorming Report, San Casioano, Italy, 2001)

Digital libraries functionalities Content creation: add (annotate and semantic indexing), store, edit, preview, delete, group, and manage multimedia digital objects (images, text, sound, video) and collections; Metadata description, metadata management; Preview, browse, navigate digital objects, collections and their descriptions; Information retrieval and mining; Search (simple, extended, semantic, context-based, etc.), filtering, selection and group of objects; User modeling/Personalized and adaptive access to the content Protection and preservation of the digital content; Multilinguality; Administration and tracking services, etc.

Bulgarian folklore digital library Web address:

Architecture

Main services (1) Functional modules for: folklore object adding folklore object editing folklore object delete folklore object preview collection creation collection preview

Folklore object with video demonstration Description of folklore object Folklore object preview

Part of the concepts and properties in the Bulgarian folklore ontology Semantic of the folklore object

Example: CFO A1_146_ an interview containing information of the catholic community in the village of Oresh, Svishtov region, northern Bulgaria. The emphasis in the interview is on the ritual, festival, and everyday life in the village, on the popular beliefs and knowledge. Complex folklore object

Semantic description of a complex folklore object A1_146_2-14 Folklore Object Type First Level Description Second Level Descriptio n Faith and Knowledge Calendar rituals Labour rituals Family rituals Rituals for rain Annunciation Interpretations Demonological personages Ritual food Easter Wedding rites Funeral rites Spinning bee Working bee Other practices For wood-nymphs Ritual Food Dreams Complex Folklore Object

Main services (2) Simple search: by a signature or archival number by title by language by annotation by type of a folklore object by file type by record information Search in the record information: by situation by interviewer’s name by recorder’s name by record date by place where the record was made

Main services (3) Extended search through all the object’s characteristics

Main services (4) Module for –Managing and monitoring users’ data and activities: registration, logs, data changes, level set; actions, related to the object manipulation: search, preview, delete, add, edit, select, etc., administrative actions. –File format conversion –XML export of the BFDL objects

Implementation of the Bulgarian folklore digital library The main tools and languages used: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x64 Standard; Web server: Apache HTTP Server v 2.2, PHP v 2.2.9; Database management system: MySQL v 5.1 Standard; Tools for the additional modules: FFMPEG, vwWare, HTML, JavaScript, AJAX; Database query language: SPARQL

Conclusions and future works Bulgarian folklore digital library: –Enrichment the folklore object repository by a team from the Institute for Folklore-BAS –Functionality tests and assessment –Functionality improvement Final stage: Design and development of Bulgarian folklore portal