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The International Committee for Documentation of the International Council of Museums
(ICOM-CIDOC)
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Originally edited by Jim Bower and Andrew Roberts, this page is a resource guide to museum and cultural heritage information standards and organisations producing standards. It is based on a brochure produced by the Getty Information Institute (formerly the Getty Art History Information Program, now incorporated in the Getty Research Institute) and CIDOC, titled Developments in international museum and cultural heritage information standards, first published in 1993 and updated in July 1995. It is being edited and updated in the course of maintaining the CIDOC Web site. An introduction based on the brochure is also available.
This resource guide describes a number of international and national standards initiatives. The selections listed are not meant to exclude many other important contributions being 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).
Current details of standards projects are given in pages on recent museum information standards initiatives and International organisations.
This working group of 10 archivists is funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). Its current project, scheduled to end in February 1993, is the development of a comprehensive model that defines the scope of archival information systems in terms of the activities undertaken by archivists and the data required to support these activities.
Contact: Marion Matters, Project Coordinator, 1936 Sargent Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105, USA. tel: +1-612-698-6949, email: 70731.2506@compuserve.com.
The AITF, sponsored by the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP) and the College Art Association, and funded by AHIP and the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency, coordinates the development of standards for describing art objects and exchanging computerized art information. The AITF evolved in response to separate initiatives undertaken by three professional organizations investigating common standards for describing works of art and their images, as well as a format for the electronic exchange of such information. These organizations, each represented on the task force, were the Museum Computer Network (MCN), the Visual Resources Association (VRA), and the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA). Art historians, museum curators, registrars, and visual resources curators make up the task force.
The Bureau of Canadian Archivists' Planning Committee on Descriptive Standards is issuing a data content standard, Rules for Archival Description (RAD), for Canadian archives. RAD is based on the archival principle of respect du fond and the International Standard for Bibliographic Description (General) (ISBD(G)). Accordingly, archival descriptive records based on RAD can produce records in MARC format if required.
Contact: Kent M. Haworth, Chairman, Planning Committee on Descriptive Standards, National Archives of Canada, Room 3016, 344 Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0N3, Canada. tel: +1-613-995-1555, fax: +1-613-995-6217.
CHIN, a branch of the Arts and Heritage Sector of Communications Canada, maintains the national inventory of Canadian collections and offers a variety of services to museums, including automated collections management as well as advice on documentation standards and new technology. Through various partnerships, such as the Conservation Information Network (CIN), CHIN offers international access to a variety of specialized databases related to natural and cultural heritage. CHIN is an active participant in the International Committee for Documentation (CIDOC) of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and has recently conducted a study for UNESCO on the impact of technology on the international exchange of cultural heritage information. A number of other international projects are undertaken through bilateral agreements.
Contact: Client Services, Canadian Heritage Information Network, Department of Canadian Heritage, 365 Laurier Avenue West, 14th Floor, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0C8, Canada. tel: +1-613-992-3333, fax: +1-613-952-2318, email: service@chin.gc.ca.
This documentation center and information service no longer exists. It was located in the Frick Art Reference Library of The Frick Collection, New York, and collected and disseminated information related to art, museum, and library informatics. Most of the Clearinghouse documents were brought to The Frick Collection and integrated into the Art Reference Library collection, and most of the information that was once in the database can now be found in Web sites. Although there is no longer a "Clearinghouse" database, the documents can be found in the Library and still serve to assist those researching the history of museum and art informatics. An article by Karen Parles (Spectra, Summer 1996, 23(4), p33-35) discusses the impact of the Internet on this service and how Web sites were doing the work that was once done by the Clearinghouse. - [Information from Patricia Barnett, Andrew W. Mellon Librarian(Chief, Library, Archives, and Information Resources), The Frick Collection / Frick Art Reference Library. August 2000]
CAIE, a committee of the Society of American Archivists (SAA), represents the archival profession's interests in the development of the MARC AMC format (Machine-Readable Cataloging/Archival and Manuscript Control), a standard data structure that archivists in the United States have adopted for exchanging information about their holdings. Proposed changes or refinements to the AMC format are initiated by either the archival or the library community and are then presented to the Library of Congress for consideration.
Contact: Peter Hirtle, Chair, CAIE National Archives and Records Administration, Policy & Information Resource Management Services, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD 20740, USA. tel: +1-301-713-7070, fax: +1-301-713-6913, email: peter.hirtle@arch2.nara.gov.
The goal of the Common Agenda, a program of the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH), is to make the holdings of history museums more widely available. Its Common Databases Task Force acts to identify the data fields U.S. museums currently use to document historical objects. The task force has two charges: to describe data fields appropriate for recording information about single objects and to create a format to describe the scope of a group of related objects. It has prepared a recommended list of minimal data elements for collections management and hopes to identify additional fields that museums or historians might wish to include to make museum collections more useful for research or interpretive purposes.
Contact: American Association for State and Local History, 172 Second Avenue North, Suite 102, Nashville, TN 37201, USA. tel: +1-615-255-2971.
CIMI is a standards project initiated in 1990 by the Museum Computer Network (MCN) and operated as a committee of MCN which reports to the Board of Directors. CIMI is developing a standards framework that will allow museums to exchange data, build common databases, and move information from one system to another, thus encouraging information exchange for scholarly and research purposes and making cultural heritage information more widely available.
Contact: John Perkins, CIMI Project Manager, RR 1 Boutiliers Point, Halifax, Nova Scotia, BOJ 1G0, Canada. tel: +1-902-826-2824, fax: +1-902-826-1337, email: jperkins@fox.nstn.ns.ca.
The Council of Europe was established in 1949 as an intergovernmental political organization. Representing over 25 European pluralistic democracies, the Council of Europe encourages discussion of integrated conservation of its social, urban, and cultural heritage (the Council of Europe is distinct from the European Commission, which is part of the European Union). Under the aegis of the Cultural Heritage Committee, the Division for Cultural Heritage promotes cooperation and consultation between national and international heritage documentation centers to (1) establish a common corpus of information to be included in a heritage documentation system; (2) establish common minimum standards for data banks, documentation systems, and inventories; and (3) promote and implement international pilot projects to test the viability of common approaches to heritage documentation. In 1991 the Council of Europe sponsored a Colloquium in Nantes, France, which led to the identification of a set of core data standards for the architectural heritage. Colloquies on core data standards for the archaeological heritage and movable heritage are planned.
Contact: Daniel Thérond, Division for Cultural Heritage, Council of Europe, BP 431 R6, F-67006 Strasbourg Cedex, France. tel: +33-88-41-20-00, fax: +33-88-41-27-81.
Of the 24 Directorates General of the EC, 11 are concerned with aspects of fine arts and heritage matters. DG X (Information, Communication, Culture, Audiovisual) and DG XIII (Telecommunications, Information Market, and Exploitation of Research) have awarded many grants in support of collaborative projects which have involved the development of various standards. (See Network of Art Research Computer Image Systems in Europe (NARCISSE) and Remote Access to Museum Archives (RAMA).) DG III (Industrys); DG IV (Competition); DG V (Employment, Industrial Relations and Social Affairs); DG XI (Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection); and DG XXI (Customs and Indirect Taxation) are also involved in aspects of art trade.
Contact: Bénédicte Selfslagh, European Commission, DG X, Cultural Action Unit, 120 rue de Trèves, 4/46 B 1049 Brussels, Belgium. tel: +32-2-299-92-48, fax: +32-2-299-92-83.
AHIP, an operating program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, seeks to make cultural heritage information more accessible through computer networks. In collaboration with domestic and international institutions and organizations, AHIP helps shape the direction of automation in the humanities and arts by focusing on policy, standards, and practice. AHIP has launched several Initiatives focused on issues of access and distribution of cultural information in a networked environment. Through its Standards Projects, AHIP contributes to the consistency needed for effective creation, maintenance, and retrieval of information. AHIP's Research Databases offer a critical mass of high-quality content available to researchers in the cultural sector.
ICONCLASS (Iconographic Classification) is a hierarchical notation-based system for the indexing and organization of subject matter of art works and their surrogate images. Developed in The Netherlands by H. van de Waal but published in English, iconclass has been implemented in many European and American museums, slide libraries, photographic archives, and documentation centers. Since 1990, the ICONCLASS Research & Development Group has been responsible for coordinating revisions and updates to the ICONCLASS database, and releasing ICONCLASS in machine-readable form through its Browser software and related products.
Contact: Institute of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, Padualaan 14, 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands. Postal address: Postbus 80089, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands
tel: +31 30 2531454; fax: +31 30 2513791, email: info@iconclass.nl.
Working with the International Committee for Documentation (CIDOC) of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and similar initiatives in Eastern Europe, the Information Centre for Culture and Heritage is developing data standards for Romanian collections. In May 1992 the Centre organized a regional conference on museum documentation with the assistance of the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP). The Centre maintains a database of collections in national and local museums, private and church collections, and libraries.
Contact: Dan Matei, Information Centre for Culture and Heritagem Ministry of Culturem Piata Presei Liberem 1 71341 Bucharestm POB 33-90, Romania. tel: +40-0-17-51-70m fax: +40-0-59-47-81.
An affliated committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the International Committee for Costume Museums and Collections has produced a widely used costume classification. Guidelines for collecting, accessioning, maintaining, storing, displaying, and loaning costumes were approved by the committee in 1989; a revised and enlarged work is in process.
Contact: Mariliina Perkko, Chair, Director, Espoo City Museum, Ruomelantie 18 F 20, SF-02210 Espoo, Finland. tel: +358 0 869 6999, fax: +358 0 869 6979.
CIDOC has over 700 members in 65 countries. It includes many working groups concerned with standards issues. The Archaeological Sites Working Group is collaborating with national sites and monuments organizations and the Council of Europe in the development of standards for site documentation. The Documentation Working Group is comparing museum data standards and developing a data model, practical data standards and reviews of terminology resources. Its draft standard for art and archaeology has been used by the Network of Art Research Computer Image Systems in Europe (NARCISSE) project. The Iconography Working Group is examining existing classification schemes for iconography. The Multimedia Working Group is examining standards for the application of multimedia technology.
Contact: Jeanne Hogenboom, Chair, Bureau IMC, Eendrachsweg 37,, 3012 LC Rotterdam, Netherlands, tel: (+31) 10 411 70 70; fax: (+31) 10 411 60 36; e-mail: buroimc@euronet.nl.
CIMCIM, a committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), seeks to locate, document, and preserve musical instruments and traditions worldwide and to develop standards for cataloging musical instruments. ICOM's International Committee for Documentation (CIDOC) and CIMCIM are developing naming conventions which can be followed when comparing museum data standards.
Contact: Prof. Sumi Gunji, Chair, Gasthof Canisiusbrunni, Murstr. 75, A-6063 Rum, Austria. fax: +43 512 261 20381.
An International Council of Museums (ICOM) affiliate, ICAM has as its primary aims to raise the quality of the built environment and to stimulate public response in the appreciation and understanding of architecture. ICAM supports documentation activities to monitor and record the location of architectural records, aid in their preservation, and exchange this information by means of publications, exhibitions, films, and other media.
Contact: Elisabeth Seip, Secretary General, ICAM Norwegian Museum of Architecture, Josefinesgate 34, N-0351 Oslo 3, Norway. tel: +47-2-60-22-90, fax: +47-2-69-59-48.
ICOM was established to encourage the advancement of museums and the museum profession. Its Documentation Centre holds extensive information about all aspects of museums, including activities in the development of standards. In addition to 85 national committees, ICOM supports 24 international committees and nine affiliated international organizations, several of which are involved in establishing information standards. (See the International Committee for Documentation (CIDOC), the International Committee for Musical Instruments Museums and Collections (CIMCIM), and the International Committee for Costume Museums and Collections.)
Contact: ICOM Documentation Centre, Maison de l'UNESCO, 1 rue Miollis, 75732 Paris Cedex 15, France. tel: +33-1-45-68-28-52, fax: +33-1-43-06-78-62, e-mail: icom@unesco.org.
The ICA Committee on Automation undertakes study and research, promotes the exchange of expertise, and drafts standards and directives concerning the management of machine-readable records, the automation of archival administration, and the use of computers in the description of archives.
Contact: Christopher J. Kitching, Assistant Secretary, Royal Commission on Historical Manuscript, Quality House, Quality Court, Chancery Lane London, WC2A 1HP, United Kingdom. tel: +44-171-242-1198, fax: +44-171-831-3550.
The ICA Ad Hoc Committee on Descriptive Standards, established in agreement with UNESCO, has prepared a Statement of Principles regarding archival description which was adopted at the 1992 ICA Congress in Montreal. It is developing a set of internationally applicable standards for the description of archives, beginning with the General International Standard for Archival Description.
Contact: Hugo L.P. Stibbe, Senior Archival Descriptive Standards Officer, National Archives of Canada, 395 Wellington Street Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0N3, Canada. tel: +1-613-996-7592, fax: +1-613-995-2267.
IFLA seeks to promote international understanding, cooperation, discussion, research, and development in all fields of library activity and information science. IFLA sponsors and supports efforts to develop international standards for the creation and interchange of bibliographic data and authority files. IFLA actively participates in the work of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee 46.
Contact: Winston Roberts, Coordinator of Professional Activities, IFLA Headquarters, POB 95312, 2509 CH The Hague, The Netherlands. tel: +31-70-3140884, fax: +31-70-3834827, email: leo.voogt@ifla.nl
Also contact: IFLA UBCIM Programme, Die Deutsche Bibliothek, Zeppelinallee 48, w-6000 Frankfurt/Main 1, Germany. tel: +49-69-7410906, fax: +49-69-7566224.
ISO is a worldwide federation of national standards institutes whose work of developing international standards is carried out through the ISO Technical Committees (TCs). It was created to coordinate and systematize the international exchange of information, to standardize national and international technical specifications and related documents, and to develop standards for constructing thesauri and for indexing. Technical Committee 46 is concerned with information and documentation.
Contact: ISO Central Secretariat, ISO, Caisse postale 56, CH-1211 Geneve 20, Switzerland. (for general inquiries, contact the ISO national standards organization in your country)
The French Ministry of Culture is responsible for recording all cultural property in two databases built for that purpose: I-ARCHI, which inventories architecture and the built environment, and I-OBJET, which includes information about movable objects. In producing these databases, the Inventaire has developed terminology authorities which have been published as Architecture, Objets Civils Domestiques, Le Mobilier Domestique, La Sculpture, Tapisserie, and Vitrail.
Contact: Catherine Arminjon, Direction du patrimoine, Inventaire général, 10, rue du Parc-Royal, 75003 Paris, France. tel: +33-1-40-15-75-87, fax: +33-1-40-15-76-76.
The ICCD, part of the Italian Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Property, is building a database of the patrimony of Italy that will include art-historical, archaeological, architectural, and environmental objects in Italian museums and on Italian territory. The ICCD has produced a number of cataloging manuals and terminology dictionaries which serve respectively as data content and data value standards for documenting Italian patrimony.
Contact: Dr. Serenita Papaldo, Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, via di S. Michele 18, 00153 Rome, Italy. tel: +39-6-588-09-60, fax: +39-6-583-67-23.
MCN, based in the United States, is a consortium of museums and individuals concerned with promoting excellence in museums through the development and use of automated information systems. In 1990 MCN formed the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI) committee to develop a standards framework that will allow museums to exchange and share data.
Contact: Museum Computer Network, 8720 Georgia Avenue, Suite 501, Silver Springs, MD 20910, USA. tel: +1-301-585-4413, fax: +1-301-495-0810, email: mdevine@cni.org.
mda advises and supports United Kingdom museums in the documentation of their collections. Its standards work includes the development of the mda Data Standard, a detailed and widely used analysis of museum information. In collaboration with the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP), the Association has addressed other related issues such as terminology for museums. It is leading an initiative to develop a United Kingdom Museum Documentation Standard, a project to design and promote nationally accepted data and procedural standards, with the involvement of the full museum community.
Contact: mda, Jupiter House, Station Road, Cambridge CB1 2JD, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1223 315760; Fax: +44 (0)1223 362521; Email: mda@mda.org.uk.
The Information Technology Standards Working Group of the National Council on Archives is studying and advising on the information standards used by United Kingdom archive repositories.
Contact: Richard Sargent, Assistant Keeper The Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Quality House, Quality Court, Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1HP, United Kingdom. tel: +44-171-242-1198, fax: +44-171-831-3550.
A European research and development program under the European Commission's DG XIII, the NARCISSE project is creating a high-resolution image bank and multilingual information retrieval system. The images are principally scientific documents made from paintings undergoing conservation. The documentation records consist of information about the paintings, original images, and conservation of the works. NARCISSE has adopted the data standard developed by the International Committee for Documentation's (CIDOC) Data and Terminology Working Group for the analysis of the text information. A lexicon of standard terminology has been prepared and translated into seven languages.
Contact: Christian Lahanier, Chargé de mission scientifique, Laboratoire de recherche des musées de France, Direction des musées de France, Palais du Louvre, 6, rue des Pyramides, 75041 Paris Cedex 01, France. tel: +33-1-40-20-58-71, fax: +33-1-47-03-32-46.
Online museums : from research to innovation, from RAMA to OpenHeritage / Dominique Delouis - Cultivate Interactive, issue 3, 29 January 2001.
Dominique Delouis reports on the Remote Access to Museum Archives (RAMA) Project, a 10-year piece of work aimed at making information and communication technologies available to museums in the most user-friendly and cost effective way. The final goals of the project were to make museum collections more widely accessible, bring larger audiences to the museum premises and create larger revenues to support investment in multimedia technology. He also talks about two follow up projects to RAMA: The MENHIR Project which ran from 1997 to 1998 and the OpenHeritage Project which has just started. - [Author's abstract]
The Royal Commission, the national body responsible for surveys and records pertaining to the historic environment in England, provides users with expert advice, and information in the form of publications or derived from database records. It has developed the National Monuments Record database, which enables the indexing and correlation of information on architectural and archaeological sites and associated archives. rchme has developed and published information and data standards for computerization, as well as guidelines for information levels for recording historic buildings and archaeological sites in England. It also publishes thesauri of architectural and archaeological terminology for use by national and regional bodies. The RCHME is also working with the Council of Europe Division for Cultural Heritage on the development and promotion of core data standards for the recording of archaeological and architectural patrimony in Europe.
Contact: John Bold, Head of Architecture, The Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, National Monuments Record Centre, Kemble Drive, Swindon SN2 2GZ, United Kingdom. tel: +44-1793-414649, fax: +44-1793-414707 or +44-1793-414606.
SAA is a professional association composed of individuals and institutions concerned with the identification, preservation, and use of records of historical value. Although based in the United States and Canada, SAA has members in more than 60 countries. The Society's Standards Board coordinates the development of data, interchange, and system standards within the association and maintains a database of relevant standards for the SAA representative to the U.S. National Information Standards Organization (NISO). The Committee on Archival Information Exchange (CAIE) and Working Group on Standards for Archival Description (WGSAD) are bodies within the Society that work on the development and implementation of specific standards.
Contact: Linda Evans, Chicago Historical Society, Clark Street at North Ave., Chicago, IL 60614, USA. tel: +1-312-642-4600, fax: +1-312-266-2077.
The Working Group on Standards for Archival Description (WGSAD), an ad hoc body within the Society of American Archivists (SAA), has published guidelines and handbooks on archival information standards. Its focus is on data standards.
Contact: Victoria Irons Walch, WGSAD Project Coordinator, 65 North Westminster Stree,t Iowa City, IA 52245, USA. tel: +1-319-338-6650.
The TEI, sponsored by the Association for Computers and the Humanities, the Association for Computational Linguistics, and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, is developing and disseminating guidelines for the encoding and interchange of machine-readable texts in the humanities and language industries. It has two major objectives: (1) to specify a common interchange format, and (2) to provide a set of recommendations for encoding textual material. The TEI guidelines use the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).
Contact: C. Michael Sperberg-McQueen, University of Illinois at Chicago, Computer Center (M/C 135), 1940 West Taylor Street, Room 124, Chicago, IL 60612, USA. tel: +1-312-413-0317, fax: +1-312-996-6896, email: u35395@uicvm.bitnet.
In Europe contact: Lou Burnard, Oxford University Computing Services, 13 Banbury Road Oxford, OX2 6NN, United Kingdom. tel: +44-1865-273238, fax: +44-1865-273275, email: lou@vax.ox.ac.uk.
TAU, a subcommittee of the Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art (CIHA), was established in 1983 to investigate which authority files in art information systems could be used in an automated biographical data bank, and to anticipate the eventual effect of automation on art-historical research. On completion of its work in 1989, TAU published manuals for an artists' biographical database and for an historical-geographic database. TAU recommended that the Art & Architecture Thesaurus be translated to form a multilingual thesaurus.
To order TAU publications contact: Marilyn Schmitt, Program Manager, The Getty Art History Information Program, 401 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1100, Santa Monica, CA 90401-1455, USA. tel: +1-310-395-1025, fax: +1-310-451-5570, email: mschmitt@getty.edu.
A vocabulary standards project of the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP), the Thesaurus of Geographic Names will be the first automated source of hierarchically arranged international geographic data. The thesaurus is scheduled for release in machine-readable form in 1995.
Contact: Murtha Baca, Senior Authority Editor, The Getty Art History Information Program, 401 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1100, Santa Monica, CA 90401-1455, USA. tel: +1-310-395-1025, fax: +1-310-451-5570, email: mbaca@getty.edu.
A vocabulary standards project of the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP), the Union List of Artist Names is a database of artists' and architects' names, along with biographical and bibliographic data, cumulated from the authority files of nine Getty-affiliated projects. The ULAN was released in a variety of print and machine-readable formats in 1994.
Contact: Murtha Baca, Senior Authority Editor, The Getty Art History Information Program, 401 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1100, Santa Monica, CA 90401-1455, USA. tel: +1-310-395-1025, fax: +1-310-451-5570, email: mbaca@getty.edu.
http://cidoc.icom.museum/stand2.htm
revised/dernière mise à jour: 2002-12-19
Original editors: Jim Bower and 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
Original brochure copyright © 1995 The J. Paul Getty Trust All rights reserved
Web page © The J. Paul Getty Trust and the International Committee for Documentation of
the International Council of Museums/Comité international pour la documentation du Conseil
international des musées (ICOM-CIDOC), 1996-2000.