What is Crosswalks

his chapter presents basic guidelines for maintaining digital cultural collections in order for them to be interoperable and easily retrievable from users. The requirements of cultural material are discussed and it is shown how in combination with the adequate metadata schema policy a digital cultural collection can cover the various needs for learning and retrieving information. The authors emphasize the fact that various metadata schemas are used for describing cultural collections and that this leads to problems for interoperability. It is analyzed that while designing a digital collection, the internal structure of material must be followed and the metadata model must cover specific needs; furthermore, a data preservation policy is a considerable issue in the digital era.