Evaluating the success of vocabulary reconciliation for cultural heritage collections Seth van Hooland †∗ , Ruben Verborgh § , Max De Wilde † , Johannes Hercher ⋄ , Erik Mannens § , and Rik Van de Walle § † Université Libre de Bruxelles Information and Communication Science Department Avenue F. D. Roosevelt, 50 CP 123 B-1050 Brussels, Belgium {svhoolan,madewild}@ulb.ac.be Phone: +32 2 650 4765 § Ghent University – IBBT, ELIS – Multimedia Lab Gaston Crommenlaan 8 bus 201 B-9050 Ledeberg-Ghent, Belgium {ruben.verborgh,erik.mannens,rik.vandewalle}@ugent.be Phone: +32 9 33 14959 ⋄ Hasso-Plattner-Institute, University of Potsdam Prof.-Dr.-Helmert-Straße 2–3 D-14482 Potsdam, Germany johannes.hercher@hpi.uni-potsdam.de Phone: +49 331 5509 547 May 2012 Abstract The concept of Linked Data has made its entrance in the cultural heritage sector due to its potential use for the integration of heterogeneous collections and deriving additional value out of existing metadata. However, practitioners and researchers alike need a better understanding of what outcome they can reasonably expect of the reconciliation process between their local metadata and established controlled vocabularies which are already a part of the Linked Data cloud. This paper offers an in-depth analysis of how a locally developed vocabulary can be successfully reconciled with the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and the Arts and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) through the help of a general-purpose tool for interactive data transformation (Google Refine). Issues negatively affecting the reconciliation process are identified and solutions are proposed in order to get a maximum value from existing metadata and controlled vocabularies in an automated manner. ∗ Corresponding author 1