Applicability of digital library descriptive metadata to the contemporary artworks: The Sapienza digital library case study

The metadata framework which supports preservation, management and dissemination of the Sapienza Digital Library (SDL) resources, was built on the most spread digital libraries standards' combination, endorsed by the Library of Congress. This article explores the applicability of the SDL metadata framework to the contemporary art field. It addresses the mapping of the SDL metadata semantics toward museums metadata standards, and analyses the information model's differences, locating complexities in the specific field and technical difficulties in translation. The applicability study is useful to improve the SDL interoperability in the management of the differences in information granularity, and to fulfill the lack or to avoid the waste of information. It is also, the theoretical basement for the implementation of export functions toward resources' aggregators like Europeana, focused also on cultural objects. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.