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Metadata are fundamental in establishing a digital library and museum while domain communities describe, interpret and manage different digital objects. Although many metadata formats and sets have been developed, it is difficult to choose an appropriate format and conversion is problematical, especially for the Chinese materials. This paper is a progress report from the Metadata Taskforce Group designing Chinese metadata for the digital library and museum project (DLMP) at Academia Sinica in Taiwan. The group’s top priority is to construct goals, principles and procedures while designing the metadata format for Chinese contents. Not only does the Metadata Taskforce Group present the analysis of content attributes of Formosan Plain indigenous people, but also several marked achievements and findings are suggested, such as the metadata record structure and criteria of selecting and evaluating the current metadata formats.

The study aims to investigate, through mapping analysis, the operation of knowledge organization systems (KOS) in different languages (English and Chinese), the types of term equivalence and the degree of similarity between different conceptual structures, and issues related thereto.

Terms are selected from the Art & Architecture Thesaurus developed by Getty Research Institute in the USA (source language) and the National Palace Museum in Taiwan participating in Taiwan e‐Learning and Digital Archives Program (target language). In respect of data analysis, mapping analysis and content analysis are both adopted.

Among the six types of term equivalence, “exact equivalence” appears most frequently. The degree of similarity between different conceptual structures can be divided into four types: similar structure, transferring part of the structure of source language into the system of target language by modeling; similar structure, but the structure of source language needs to be expanded or revised; dissimilar structure, the term in target language can be partially mapped to the term in source language; lack of structure, no matches between target language and source language.

The next step is to develop a more comprehensive conceptual structure that can incorporate multicultural perspectives. If the “partial equivalence” terms are further identified as important concepts, the problems of non‐exact equivalence terms and dissimilar conceptual structures can be solved by addressing the needs of English users in searching for Chinese art collections.

The study serves as a pilot study applicable to the development of multilingual KOS in the domain of Chinese fine arts, building the first demonstration model for the interoperability of KOS in Chinese and English.

In 1998, the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) model which is composed of four entities (work, expression, manifestation and item) and their associative relationships (primary, responsibility and subject), was proposed by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). The FRBR model can be deployed as a logical framework for proceeding metadata analysis and developing metadata format. This paper presents a case study of the National Palace Museum (NPM) in Taipei to examine the feasibility of the FRBR model. Based on the examination of case study at the NPM, the FRBR model is proven to be a useful and fundamental framework for metadata analysis and implementation. Findings show that the FRBR model is helpful in identifying proper metadata elements organization and their distribution over the FRBR entities. The model is more suitable for media‐centric and association‐rich contents. However, in order to refine the FRBR model as a common framework for metadata, it would also require supportive mechanisms for management responsibility relationships for the workflow consideration and refine the distinction between work and expression entity.