Building semantic bridges between museums, libraries and archives: The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model

Abstract

Building semantic bridges between museums, libraries and archives: The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model by Tony Gill

The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model is an object–oriented domain ontology for the interchange of rich and heterogeneous cultural heritage information from museums, libraries and archives. It is the evolutionary result of over two decades of collaborative international standards work by ICOM/CIDOC, the Comité International pour la Documentation of the International Council of Museums. This paper briefly explains the purpose, scope, structure and history of the CIDOC CRM, and outlines how it could be used as a building block in a global Semantic Web of culture.