The School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has formally joined the special interest group (SIG) that leads the development of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM), an ISO standard (21127:2023) for the exchange and integration of wide-ranging scientific and scholarly documentation about the past.
The SIG operates under the guidance of CIDOC, the International Council of Museums' Committee for Documentation. Member institutions are public and private organizations involved in the research, documentation, and study of cultural heritage who also have an interest or expertise in the CIDOC CRM, knowledge engineering, and/or semantic web technologies.
Assistant Professor Nicola Carboni will serve as the iSchool's representative on the SIG.
"In addition to re-establishing a strong North American presence in this community and positioning the iSchool as a leading voice in the space, the membership grants the iSchool voting rights on the evolution of the standard and the ability to participate in its review process," Carboni explained. "It also creates opportunities for students to be directly involved in the development of the standard, providing them with hands-on experience in international standards development."
Along with overseeing the ongoing development of the standard and ontologies for describing cultural heritage information, the SIG collaborates with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) on the development of LRMoo, the ontological formalization of the IFLA Library Reference Model.