In collaboration with the International Council of Museums Committee for Documentation (ICOM CIDOC), ISO Technical Committee 46 is developing a reference ontology for the interchange of cultural heritage information. The ISO/CD 21127 (Committee Draft) published August 8, 2002 provides a formal "domain ontology for cultural heritage information... it is intended to cover all concepts relevant to cultural heritage information, but most particularly those needed for wide area data exchange between museums, libraries, and archives. Due to the diversity of the subject matter and the nature of cultural heritage collections, this goal can ultimately be achieved only by extensions to the standard. However, thanks to its object-oriented nature, the ontology offers a backbone of powerful general concepts, which have a wide application... This proposed standard is already being tested and implemented by members of the working group. Mappings (crosswalks) have been established with major data schemas and metadata standards such as Dublin Core, ABC, and Spectrum. XML and RDFS implementations have been developed using the CRM and data migrations have been made using test data provided by different institutions. The scope of the CRM has been extended to provide enhanced support for archeology and natural sciences."

Bibliographic information: Information and documentation -- A reference ontology for the interchange of cultural heritage information. [Informatiques et documentation -- Un ontologie de référence pour l'échange des informations du patrimoine culturelle]. ISO/CD 21127. Document reference: ISO TC 46/SC 4 N500. From ISO TC 46/SC 4/WG 9 [chaired by Nicholas Crofts]. Date: 2002-08-8. 118 pages. With informative annexes: Annex A, Entities presented as a mono-hierarchy; Annex B, Index of the properties by alphabetical order; Annex C, Index of the sub-properties. ISO 21127 was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 46 [Computer applications in information and documentation, Subcommittee SC 4, Technical interoperability] in collaboration with the International Council of Museums Committee for Documentation (ICOM CIDOC).

From the ISO/CD Introduction:

ISO 21127 is a domain ontology for cultural heritage information. As such, it is designed to be explanatory and extensible rather than prescriptive and restrictive. Currently, no specific formalism for semantic models has been widely accepted as standard, nevertheless the semantic deviations between the various available models are minimal. Consequently, the model has been formulated as an object-oriented semantic model, which can easily be converted into other object-oriented models. It is our intention that this presentation format should be both natural and expressive for domain experts, and easily converted to other machine readable formats such as RDF and XML. Considerable effort has gone into achieving these goals; all cross-references and inheritance of properties, for example, are explicitly resolved. This has led to a certain degree of redundancy, but makes the document more readily comprehensible and facilitates its use as a reference document.

The standard is intended to cover all concepts relevant to cultural heritage information, but most particularly those needed for wide area data exchange between museums, libraries, and archives. Due to the diversity of the subject matter and the nature of cultural heritage collections, this goal can ultimately be achieved only by extensions to the standard. However, thanks to its object-oriented nature, the ontology offers a backbone of powerful general concepts, which have a wide application...

The primary purpose of ISO 21127 is to offer a conceptual basis for the mediation of information between cultural heritage organizations such as museums, libraries and archives. The standard aims to provide a common reference point against which divergent and incompatible sources of information can be compared and, ultimately, harmonized.

From the notes of Committee Draft ISO/CD 21127, ISO Form 7:

The document represents the current stable version of the Conceptual Reference Model (CRM). All WG 9 members have approved this document. Some further enhancements (principally improvements to the documentation, some questions of terminology, and refinement of existing structures) are under consideration by the WG and may be introduced at the DIS stage.

This proposed standard is already being tested and implemented by members of the working group. Mappings (crosswalks) have been established with major data schemas and metadata standards such as Dublin Core, ABC, and Spectrum. XML and RDFS implementations have been developed using the CRM and data migrations have been made using test data provided by different institutions. The scope of the CRM has been extended to provide enhanced support for archeology and natural sciences.

The quality of the CRM documentation has also been enhanced. A number of entities have been renamed to improve clarity and extended scope notes have been written for all entity properties. The entire CRM has been revised for editorial consistency. Additional background material explaining the scope, the role and uses of the CRM has been written.

About CIDOC: "CIDOC is the international focus for the documentation interests of museums and related organizations. It has over 750 members in 60 countries. The Committee is one of 25 component international committees of the International Council of Museums (ICOM)"