Abstract: Metadata is the key to realize the organization and digital storage of archival documentary heritage, and also the guarantee of its development and utilization. Considering the definition, the hierarchical structure and the attributes of classes of ontology, this paper designs an aggregated metadata system with semantic features and content elements. Taking archival documentary heritage as the research object, we treat its metadata design as the core problem and put forward the general idea and specific steps of ontology-driven metadata design of archival documentary heritage, including resource selection and collection, construction of ontology models, from ontology to metadata, and application of metadata schemes. In addition, taking Suzhou silk archives as an example, the knowledge ontology is constructed combined with their characteristics to realize the design and application of metadata schemes, so as to confirm the validity and scientificity of ontology in guiding metadata construction.

Key words: Archival documentary heritage, Metadata, Ontology, Suzhou silk archives, Archival entity, Digital resources