The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model provides the extensible ontology for concepts and information in cultural heritage and museum documentation. It is the international standard (ISO 21127:2006) for the controlled exchange of cultural heritage information.[1] Archives, libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions are encouraged to use the CIDOC CRM to enhance accessibility to museum-related information and knowledge.
History
The CIDOC CRM emerged from the Documentation Standards Group[2] in the International Committee for Documentation of the International Council of Museums CIDOC. Until 1994 the entity-relationship model for museum information was created. In 1996 the method was changed to object-oriented modeling, thus 1999 resulting in the first "CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM)". The process of establishing the CIDOC CRM as international standard began in 2000 through the (ISO) and was completed in 2006 with its acceptance as the ISO 21127 standard.
Aims
The overall aim of the CIDOC CRM is to provide an information standard that museums, and other cultural heritage institutions, can use to describe their collections, and related business entities, in ways that enable this information to be better shared.
The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) provides definitions and a formal structure for describing the implicit and explicit concepts and relationships used in cultural heritage documentation...to promote a shared understanding of cultural heritage information by providing a common and extensible semantic framework that any cultural heritage information can be mapped to. It is intended to be a common language for ___domain experts and implementers to formulate requirements for information systems and to serve as a guide for good practice of conceptual modelling. In this way, it can provide the "semantic glue" needed to mediate between different sources of cultural heritage information, such as that published by museums, libraries and archives.
It does this by providing a high-level conceptual reference model of their formal semantics whereby each unit of information can be assigned to the concepts of the CIDOC CRM. At the same time this process creates important pre-conditions for machine-to-machine interoperability and integration as part of the Semantic Web initiative. , because the CIDOC CRM can be used as a source for the development of tools for scheme transformation and scheme integration as well. The CIDOC CRM supports the formulation of needs for information systems and can serve as guideline and help for semantic, data, or database modeling.
CIDOC CRM lends itself to be implemented using XML and RDF.
Further reading
- [1]
- Martin Doerr, Nicholas Crofts: Electronic Communication on Diverse Data. The Role of the oo CIDOC Reference Model
- T. Gill: Making sense of cultural infodiversity: The CIDOC-CRM. 2002
- Regine Stein, Jürgen Gottschewski u.a.: Das CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model: Eine Hilfe für den Datenaustausch? Berlin, 2005 (German)