LITMUS developed new tools to describe, organise, & enable important cultural heritage materials to be more accessible across the web. While tailored to Irish traditional music, this project provides a working model for other European & non-European traditional musics with similar considerations. The LITMUS ontology's properties (relationships) can be re-used to describe traditional/folk musics outside the Irish tradition, as the phrases useful for describing relationships in Irish traditional music & dance extend to other European & non-European folk/traditional musics. Importantly, LITMUS is poised to enable greater access to ITMA’s collections and, eventually, global collections of ITM. The Library of Congress, USA is using the ontology & thesauri to express their collections of ITM & dance resources as linked data.
Tools developed as part of the LITMUS project allow ITMA to describe collections in even greater detail, & can make explicit information outside current catalogue records. Using LITMUS, we can account for renderings of the same or similar melody across many different forms of music, & even into related dance forms. We can account for similarities in personal repertoire between musicians & dancers, such as one singer knowing the same version of a song sung by another. This empowers our library & archival cataloguing work with the means to describe what occurs within traditional music & dance, giving ITMA’s users new connections between resources.
As the first linked data ontology focused on orally-based music traditions, LITMUS will therefore impact European & non-European intangible cultural heritage. LITMUS' linked data tools directly support & provide the means for public engagement with digital heritage, increased access to heritage data, & development of practical information infrastructures for digital heritage. The resulting tools were designed with flexibility & adaptability in mind, & may be expanded upon to suit ITMA's future needs. With the development of LITMUS ontology & thesauri using established standards, the project developed applied research tools in line with Horizon Europe's priorities for European cultural heritage, including societal engagement with digital cultural heritage, European-wide investment in intangible & tangible heritage, & building sustainable information pathways to enable greater access to cultural heritage data. The LITMUS project has furthered the linked data community’s work in cultural heritage, enhancing the potential for quality research & innovation contributing to Europe's competitiveness & growth.
