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The International Committee for Documentation of the International Council of Museums
(ICOM-CIDOC)
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These pages draw on information published in a brochure produced by the Getty Information Institute (formerly the Getty Art History Information Program, now incorporated in the Getty Research Institute) and CIDOC, entitled Developments in international museum and cultural heritage information standards edited by Jim Bower and Andrew Roberts, first published in 1993 and updated in July 1995. The information given continues to be edited and updated in the course of maintaining the CIDOC Web site. It is at present in process of reorganisation and there are some known inconsistencies and invalid links. You can use the CIDOC site search facility if you cannot find what you need in the structured lists.
This resource guide describes a number of international and national standards initiatives. It cannot be comprehensive and it recognises that many other important contributions are made worldwide: for example, in the areas of the natural sciences (such as the International Association for Plant Taxonomy) and archaeology (such as the International Archaeological Congress).
SPECTRUM: The UK Museum Documentation Standard represents a common understanding of good practice for museum documentation, established in partnership with the museum community. It contains procedures for documenting objects and the processes they undergo, as well as identifying and describing the information which needs to be recorded to support the procedures. In its SPECTRUM XML-DTD Testbed Project, CIMI has been contributing to the Museum Documentation Association's (mda) development of a Document Type Description (DTD) for SPECTRUM. CIMI aims to ensure that the resulting XML standard is tested within the international user community and proposes to lead an XML-DTD testbed within the CIMI membership.
The Museum Handbook covers a broad range of topics to guide National Park Service staff in managing museum and archival collections:
- Part I covers planning, preservation, and protection for the disciplines and materials represented in NPS collections, including professional ethics, specialized storage, environment standards, conservation treatments, and emergency preparedness.
- Part II outlines procedures for museum record keeping, including accessioning, cataloging, loans deaccessioning, photography, and reporting annual collection management data.
- Part III provides guidance on access and use for interpretation, education, exhibition, and research. It covers legal issues, publications, two and three-dimensional reproductions, using museum objects in exhibits and furnished historic structures, and providing access for research.
Fourteen fact sheets on documentation procedures and five on information technology, available on-line or in paper form.
Introduction to CIDOC conceptual reference model (CRM) / CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model Special Interest Group. - Crete : Institute of Computer Science, Foundation for Research and Technology (ICS-FORTH). (Includes links to the model itself and to other supporting documents). Accessed 2001-10-19.
The object-oriented CRM represents an 'ontology' for cultural heritage information i.e. it describes in a formal language the explicit and implicit concepts and relations relevant to the documentation of cultural heritage. The primary role of the CRM is to serve as a basis for mediation of cultural heritage information and thereby provide the semantic 'glue' needed to transform today's disparate, localised information sources into a coherent and valuable global resource. It has been a working item of ISO/TC46/SC4/WG9 since Sept. 2000
International Guidelines for Museum Object Information: the CIDOC Information Categories. Introduction and full text
AFRICOM Handbook of Standards. Introduction and full text
Object ID is an international standard for describing cultural objects. It has been developed through the collaboration of the museum community, police and customs agencies, the art trade, insurance industry, and valuers of art and antiques. The Object ID project was initiated by the J. Paul Getty Trust in 1993 and the standard was launched in 1997. It is being promoted by major law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, Scotland Yard and Interpol; museum, cultural heritage, art trade and art appraisal organisations; and insurance companies.
Having established the descriptive standard, the Object ID project now helps to combat art theft by encouraging use of the standard and by bringing together organisations around the world that can encourage its implementation. In 1999, the Object ID project found a new home at the Council for the Prevention of Art Theft (CoPAT). CoPAT was established in 1992 and is now a registered charity in the UK. Its mission is to promote crime prevention in the fields of art, antiques, antiquities and architecture. Its members are drawn from law enforcement, the crime prevention field, heritage organisations, historic house owners, the insurance industry and the art trade. CoPAT has participated in the project since its early stages and has played a significant role in the development of the standard.
A user model for CIMI Z39.50 application profile / Kody Janney and Jane Sledge. - CIMI, September 1995.
This model is derived from an analysis of 1500 questions users asked of museums and the responses that might be given. It is divided into five sections: 1. A basic data model (with a diagram) that represents users' interests and that can be mapped to the CIDOC model; 2. The most common logical data groups users request; 3. Typical questions using a more natural language than Boolean logic; 4. Requests that users make but which they do not overtly ask for; 5. Conclusions: This includes observations drawn from the experience of analyzing the questions that do not fit easily into other sections.
CDWA is a product of the Art Information Task Force (AITF), which encouraged dialog between art historians, art information professionals, and information providers so that together they could develop guidelines for describing works of art, architecture, groups of objects, and visual and textual surrogates.
The Categories describe the content of art databases by articulating a conceptual framework for describing and accessing information about objects and images. They identify vocabulary resources and descriptive practices that will make information residing in diverse systems both more compatible and more accessible. They also provide a framework to which existing art information systems can be mapped and upon which new systems can be developed. Further information, including a printed and electronic copy of the Categories is given in a special issue of Visual Resources, 11(3-4), 1996, edited by Murtha Baca and Patricia Harpring. This includes a background to the project and papers by Mary Case, Suzanne Folds McCullagh, David Bearman, Greg Tschann and others.
The core categories for visual resources / Visual Resources Association, Data Standards Committee. - Version 3.0, 2002.
The VRA Core Categories, Version 3.0 consist of a single element set that can be applied as many times as necessary to create records to describe works of visual culture as well as the images that document them. The Data Standards Committee followed the "1:1 principle," developed by the Dublin Core community, i.e., only one object or resource may be described within a single metadata set. How the element sets are linked to form a single record is a local database implementation issue. The order of the categories in the VRA Core 3.0 is arbitrary, and local implementations are encouraged to determine their own field sequence that will appropriately describe their data.
The VRA Core 3.0 is intended as a point of departure - not a completed application. The elements that comprise the Core are designed to facilitate the sharing of information among visual resources collections about works and images. These elements may not be sufficient to fully describe a local collection and additional fields can be added for that purpose. We also recommend the use of qualifiers with certain elements in the VRA Core 3.0 so that the data values contained in the element may be more precisely identified For instance, a "Notes" qualifier to clarify the data may be an appropriate addition to many of the current elements. Furthermore, every element may be repeated as many times as necessary within a given set to describe the work or image. - [Introduction]
The AMICO Data Specification may also be accessed as its three component parts in html format: A. Text record specification, B. Related image and multimedia file specification, and C. AMICO data dictionary. Accessed 2001-10-19.
Introduction to the CIDOC International Core Data Standard for Ethnology/Ethnography
CIDOC draft international core data standard for archaeological sites and monuments Introduction. Full text in English, Full text in French.
Additional background and a discussion of the role of the work in a European context is described in an article by Dominique Guillot and Henrik Jarl Hansen, A European core data standard for archaeological sites and monuments.
This site has many references to standards, in its own publications and other documents, which can be retrieved by using the search facility provided.
http://cidoc.icom.museum/stand0.htm
Revised / Dernière mise à jour: 2002-12-19
Original author / Auteur original: Andrew Roberts
Now maintained by / Maintenant entretenu par:Leonard Will
Link to / Passerelle vers CIDOC home page / la page d'accueil du CIDOC
or ICOM home page / la page d'accueil de l'ICOM
© The International Committee for Documentation of the International Council of Museums / Comité international pour la documentation du Conseil international des musées (ICOM-CIDOC), 1996-2001