Searching and Browsing Using RDF-Encoded Metadata: The Case of Omnipaper

Abstract

Often metadata applications concentrate on either searching or browsing. Two completely independent prototypes covering both searching and conceptual browsing (with overlapping functionality) have been built as part of the Omnipaper project: one using RDF and one using the Topic Maps family of technologies. This paper will present the full RDF prototype, with particular emphasis on the homogeneity provided by the use of RDF (together with RDF-S) in both approaches. The Omnipaper Resource Description Framework (RDF) prototype handles both these approaches and builds a coherent semantic metadata layer that may be used as a basis for all other prototypes of the Omnipaper project. As a future phase of the project, the main features to be added to the project’s final prototype will be multilinguality and personalization.