ISO (CIDOC CRM) - a very concise introduction What it is What it’s for How it’s being used Questions Nick Crofts – Convenor ISO TC46/SC4/WG9

A tough sell… Too complicated Not useful Too boring Never heard of if

ISO is an “ontology” A formal domain ontology for cultural heritage information: – precise and unambiguous – describe the things that the cultural heritage sector deals with and how these things relate to each other – expressed as an “object-oriented” schema

Background to ISO Product of the CIDOC Documentation Standards Group Work started in 1996 Crete, hosted by ICS- Forth First version presented at ICOM conference Melbourne 1998 ISO published sept 2006

Work process: Lentius, profondius, durabilius More than 10 years work Built on the collective experience of international experts from 5 continents A “bottom-up” process: – Analysis – Mapping – Intégration and enhancement Encapsulates practically all the existing standards we could find (CIDOC, mda Spectrum, CIMI, AMICO, FRBR, EAD, even Dublin Core…)

The result Rich, detailed, comprehensive Compact, economical Extensible, Robust Subjected to hard knocks, crash tested… built to last

Extensibility: an object oriented schema Basic object-oriented concepts: – Classes (object, actor, event) – Properties (current location, stolen by, took place on) – 80 classes, 131 properties – Hierarchy of general to specific concepts (animal… fish… herring… red herring) – Inheritance (what’s true of the general is true of the particular) No need to change your software

Naming conventions E number and nominal forms for entities – e.g. E39 Actor P number and verb phrases for bi- directional link properties – e.g. P2 has type (is type of) Facilitates translation and data transfer

An example class… (p49)

ISO (CIDOC CRM)

Core concepts… E39 Actor P11 had participant E77 Persistent Item P12 was present at E52 Time Span P4 has time span E53 Place P7 took place at E5 Event

Examples… Thomas Gainsborough moved to Bath in (E39 Actor, E5 Event, E53 Place, E52 Time-Span) The Yalta Conference took place on February (E5 Event, E52 Time-Span) The Tay Bridge (E77 Persistent item) was destroyed (P13) as a result of the Tay Bridge Disaster (E5 Event) Lineas (E39 Actor) created (E5 Event) the taxon « Serratula glauca » (E77 Persistent item) in 1753 (E52 Time-Span) based on (P12) the specimen BM (E77 Persistent Item)

So what’s it for?.. Establish a conceptual basis for integration and access to cultural heritage information – A bridge to help communication between culture people and technical people – A basis for design of new systems e.g. databases, XML DTD, etc. – A common reference for mediation between systems … a lingua franca

analysis implementation impact Domain of discourse SPECTRU M user guide Z39.50 XML DTD Conceptualisation Where does it fit in? Technical system ISO 21127

People using ISO Musinfo, Geneva multi-institutional database design Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg, XML DTD’s RLG Cultural Materials, database design English heritage MIDAS XML, mapping project Sculpteur, IST project information management Finnish National Gallery, guide to good practice ArchTerra, Italian virtual archeology museum …Complete list on the website

Documentation