Re: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-culture

["James.Landrum" <James.Landrum@ndsu.nodak.edu>]

Have given the ISO/CD 21127 documentation a once-over review, and will
scrutinize it further. I have been following the CIMI and related SPECTRUM
activities for several years now, and have a number of reservations about
those activities.  I provide some comments below, and please respond on
these points.

Be aware that the ISO/CD 21127 is a Conceptual Reference Model (CRM), in
draft or proposed form only at this time- it is not adopted as an
International Standard yet. Also be ware this has origins within CIMI, and
CIMI is a proprietary shop, requiring expensive "Member" status to acquire
or comment on documents, or to participate, for example,  in the CIMI XML
Schema for the Description of Museum Objects initiative, and other CIMI
activities, etc. and note the "member only" access to documents on the CIMI
link pages, e.g., http://www.cimi.org/wg/xml_spectrum/index.html

Note also that the CIMI activity is borne of or extended from previous mda
and SPECTRUM (The United Kingdom (UK) Museum Documentation Standard)
activities
(see http://www.mda.org.uk/spectrum.htm),
with SPECTRUM currently experiencing revisions,  evolving into a second
edition.
See Spectrum Interactive:
http://www.mda.org.uk/specint.htm
Note also the fee for membership and access to the documentation.


Note also that the parlance is heavily European, and there are some
important semantic as well as practical considerations with regard for UK
(and commonwealth nations) ENglish versus US English, etc. despite mention
of the multilingual and international language codes aspects.

Regardless of the above comments, I am tracking down an implementation of
this  ISO/CD 21127  item. I believe it will be useful to compare an actual
implementation of this proposed "standard" for further feasibility study.
It is one of many items that is under consideration by the NSDL, and there
are related activities regarding Dublin Core and other cultural heritage
initiatives, that I am addressing within the context of the ATL's DANA
project.

At the outset, I sense that the terminology as well as structure of the CRM
needs refinement, as noted in the documentation and with the understanding
that this is conceptual reference model, which by definition is more
abstract, or general in scope and content than a more specific schema such
as HUML or AnthML are intended to be, and that it is meant to be
extensible, with options for crosswalks and linkages, etc.

Issue at forefront is where within this CRM would HUML fit with regard to
specific entities, and is this a feasible fit?  View of this from  our ATL
projects position within the broader framework, it is relevant to our DANA
project, and ultimately to the AnthML initiative, and therefore also to
HUML, however, there appear to be numerous points of consideration
regarding structure of the CRM with regard for things anthropological
(e.g., human undertakings- both past and present contexts).

The scope of the CRM is pointedly targeting museums, libraries, etc., and
does address relevant activities that occur within those arenas,  and does
address objects and documents, as well as events, but this appears to be
(more of) a form of information management as well as content management
for institutions that emphasize the necessity of tracking of objects and
documents within institutions and with weight placed  upon description of
activities that occur within museum contexts, e.g., the [practical as well
as scholarly record of an object (or documents) genesis from initial find,
through study (identification and analysis), to curation, loan, transfer,
deaccession, etc.  Importantly, it attempts to synthesize both collection
level description and item level description under a single umbrella. Among
other thing, I am somewhat leery of usage of entity labels such as
"Physical Man-Made Stuff" . Surely there are appropriate alternatives to
"Stuff" ?  It also appears on the surface to be cumbersome to implement,
and will require substantial effort to establish and maintain.



Rex Brooks wrote:

> This is an important item. It is an ISO standard under developmet for
> a ontology of Human Cultures. It also leads, if you care to search to
> some very interesting resources.
>
> Ciao,
> Rex
>
> At 12:16 AM -0400 8/25/02, Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga wrote:
> >ISO's Cultural Heritage Initiative may be something to keep in mind as
> >well.
> >http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2002-08-20-c.html
> >
> >Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga
> >
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> Rex Brooks
> Starbourne Communications Design
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> http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com
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--
>From the desk of James [Jim] E. Landrum III
NDSU Archaeology Materials and Technologies Laboratories
URL = http://atl.ndsu.edu
Digital Archive Network for Anthropology (DANA).
DANA URL = http://atl.ndsu.edu/archive
Email: <James.Landrum@ndsu.nodak.edu>
Phone: 701-231-8059
FAX: 701-231-1047
Voice Mail: 701-231-4228