1. One ring to rule them all CIDOC CRM
Alan Poulter
CIG Conference 2010

2. Overview
The Google ‘problem’ – how to create an alternative to a large collection of unstructured information
An explanation of CIDOC CRM
How CIDOC CRM has been applied to developing FRBR
Future prospects

3. Intro
There is increasing provision of high quality digital cultural content from trusted information providers such as museums, libraries and archives.
Unlike much of the information available on the Web, digital cultural content from so–called "memory institutions" is typically authoritative, high quality, useful for education and research and has broad appeal to a wide range of audiences.

4. Intro
But the information managed by museums, libraries and archives can vary according to factors such as:
Type of institution
Professional approaches
Academic discipline
Granularity of description
Level of detail of description
Descriptive data structures
Descriptive data content values

5. Intro
Differences in descriptive schema across museums, libraries and archives can seriously hinder cross–domain discovery and interoperability of cultural information resources
Fortunately, differences are primarily at the level of data structure and syntax. Significant common conceptual elemental concepts exist: objects, people, places, events, and the interrelationships between them
Solution is to map everything to a simple schema with broad and universal semantics for the purposes of initial resource discovery (e.g. Dublin Core) – but lose richness/structure

6. CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model
CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (hereafter CRM) is an object–oriented domain ontology for exchanging rich cultural heritage data.
ISO standard 21127: 2006
class hierarchy of 81 named classes, interlinked by 132 named properties.
Actors participate in Temporal Entities (e.g. events), which are affected by Physical Entities (i.e. things) and Conceptual Objects (i.e. ideas), and occur at Places within certain Time–Spans. Appellations (i.e. names) can be used to identify entities, and Types can be used to classify them

7. CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model

8. CIDOC CRM Example

9. CIDOC CRM Example

10. CIDOC CRM Example

11. CIDOC CRM Example

12. CIDOC CRM Example

13. CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model

14. CIDOC CRM Example

15. FRBR: the conceptual model for libraries
“FRBR” is for “Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records”
Developed & published 1998 by IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions)
Maintained by the IFLA FRBR Review Group
FRBR (“Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records”) This entity-relationship model was developed on behalf of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) from 1991 to 1997, and published in 1998 by Saur. The IFLA Cataloguing Section appointed in 2002 a Review Group to maintain it and ensure its evolution, on the same pattern as the IFLA ISBD Review Group ensures the evolution of ISBDs. The FRBR model covers “textual, music, cartographic, audio-visual, graphic, three-dimensional materials” (FRBR Final Report, p. 7).

16. Key concepts of FRBR Concept Work Object Expression Event Place
The key concepts of FRBR are represented by 10 entities that are distributed over 3 groups.
Group 1 of entities represents the objects primarily described in library catalogues, and comprises:
- Work: a creation of the mind, a set of concepts;
- Expression: one of the possible “texts” (in the broadest, not limited to linguistic outputs, sense of the term) that express a given creation of the mind, a set of signs;
- Manifestation: one of the possible embodiments of an Expression;
- and Item: an individual exemplar of a Manifestation.
Work is realised through Expression, Expression is embodied in Manifestation, Manifestation is exemplified by Item.
Group 2 of entities represents the agents who performed activities related to instances of any of the entities defined in Group 1, and comprises:
- Person: a human being;
- and Corporate Body: a group of human beings.
Group 3 of entities represents what works are about (i.e., the entities that have a “subject relationship” to the Work entity), and comprises:
- all of the entities already declared in Group 1 and Group 2;
- plus: Concept, Object, Event, and Place.
Place
Manifestation
Person
Item
Corporate Body

17. FRBR/CRM Harmonisation Group
Formed 2003
Representatives from:
the IFLA FRBR Review Group
the CRM Special Interest Group
Aims:
To reach a common view of cultural heritage information
To check FRBR’s internal consistency
Output: FRBRoo
The idea that both the library and museum communities might benefit from harmonising the two models was first expressed in 2000, on the occasion of ELAG 2000 in Paris, with Nicholas Crofts and Dan Matei drafting on the spot a preliminary object-oriented representation of the FRBR model entities roughly mapped to CIDOC CRM classes. This idea grew up in the following years and eventually led to the formation in 2003 of the International Working Group on FRBR/CIDOC CRM Harmonisation, that brings together representatives from both communities. This group, chaired by Martin Doerr (ICS FORTH, Greece) (assisted by Patrick Le Bœuf), is affiliated at the same time to the IFLA FRBR Review Group and the CIDOC CRM Special Interest Group (CRM-SIG).

18. FRBRoo Works
The Work entity, such as defined in FRBR, is “a distinct intellectual or artistic creation” . “We recognize the work through individual realizations or expressions of the work, but the work itself exists only in the commonality of content between and among the various expressions of the work”. This leads to several possible interpretations of the meaning of work:
concepts shared by a number of individual expressions
overall concept (intellectual content) of a publication
intellectual content of a particular expression (=set of signs), regardless of its materialization
FRBRoo retains the general notion of “Work” as a superclass for the various possible ways of interpreting the FRBR definitions. F46 Individual Work corresponds to the concepts associated with one complete set of signs; F43 Publication Work comprises publisher’s intellectual contribution to a given publication; and F21 Complex Work is closer to the main interpretation in FRBR. Additionally, in order to deal with aggregates, F48 Container work is defined. Due to the fact that the approach is more “event-based”, there is also an emphasis on the creation process.

19. Individual Work subclass of Work:
“This class comprises works that are realised by one and only one self-contained expression, i.e., works representing the concept as expressed by precisely this expression, and that do not have other works as parts..”
Example: Abstract content of Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s ‘Carcere XVI: the pier with chains: 1st state’

20. Complex Work subclass of Work:
“can be taken up by any creator who acquires the spirit of its concept, it is never finished in an absolute sense.”
Example: Work entitled ‘Hamlet’ by William Shakespeare

21. Container Work subclass of Work:
“comprises works whose essence is to enhance or add value to expressions from one or more other works without altering them, by the selection, arrangement and/or addition of features of different form.”
Example: The concept for the layout created by printer Guido Morris for the text of Michael Hamburger’s English translation of 12 poems by Georg Trakl for publication in 1952 [an Publication Work]

22. Publication Work subclass of Container Work:
“This class comprises works that have been planned to result in a manifestation product type and that pertain to the rendering of expressions from other works.”
Example: The concept of publishing Stephen Crane’s complete poems (as edited by Joseph Katz), which includes the idea that every time a stanza jumps over a page change, the statement ‘[NO STANZA BREAK]’ should be printed as a warning for readers that the new page continues the same stanza

23. Serial Work subclass of Complex Work, Publication Work:
“This class comprises works that are, or have been, planned to result in sequences of manifestations with common features.”
Example: The periodical entitled ‘The UNESCO Courier’, ISSN ‘ ’

24. FRBRoo Works
The Work entity, such as defined in FRBR, is “a distinct intellectual or artistic creation” . “We recognize the work through individual realizations or expressions of the work, but the work itself exists only in the commonality of content between and among the various expressions of the work”. This leads to several possible interpretations of the meaning of work:
concepts shared by a number of individual expressions
overall concept (intellectual content) of a publication
intellectual content of a particular expression (=set of signs), regardless of its materialization
FRBRoo retains the general notion of “Work” as a superclass for the various possible ways of interpreting the FRBR definitions. F46 Individual Work corresponds to the concepts associated with one complete set of signs; F43 Publication Work comprises publisher’s intellectual contribution to a given publication; and F21 Complex Work is closer to the main interpretation in FRBR. Additionally, in order to deal with aggregates, F48 Container work is defined. Due to the fact that the approach is more “event-based”, there is also an emphasis on the creation process.

25. FRBRoo Expressions
In FRBRoo, there is a distinction between expressions that convey the complete idea of the work they realise, and expressions that convey only a part of it: that is, between instances of F20 Self-Contained Expression and instances of F23 Expression Fragment.

26. Self-contained Expression
subclass of Expression:
“comprises the immaterial realisations of individual works at a particular time that are regarded as a complete whole. The quality of wholeness reflects the intention of its creator that this expression should convey the concept of the work. .”
Example: The Italian text of Dante’s ‘Inferno’ as found in the authoritative critical edition La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata a cura di Giorgio Petrocchi, Milano: Mondadori,

27. Publication Expression
subclass of Self-Contained Expression:
“comprises complete sets of signs present in publications, reflecting publishers’ final decisions as to both content and layout of the publications”
Example: The overall content of the book identified by ISBN ‘ ’:

28. Expression Fragment subclass of Expression:
“This class comprises parts of Expressions and these parts are not Self-contained Expressions themselves”
Example: The only remnants of Sappho’s poems

29. FRBRoo Expressions
In FRBRoo, there is a distinction between expressions that convey the complete idea of the work they realise, and expressions that convey only a part of it: that is, between instances of F20 Self-Contained Expression and instances of F23 Expression Fragment.

30. FRBRoo Manifestations
The Manifestation entity is defined in FRBR in such a way that it could be interpreted as something physical and conceptual at the same time: it is defined at the same time as “the physical embodiment of an expression of a work” and as an entity that “represents all the physical objects that bear the same characteristics,” i.e., as both a physical artefact and a (mental) representation of physical artefacts (a set). The Manifestation covers either a manuscript (in which case Manifestation overlaps with Item) or a publication (in which case Manifestation is both a Type and an Information Object)
FRBRoo strives to solve such logical inconsistencies, and had to “split” the Manifestation entity into two distinct classes, corresponding to the two possible ways of interpreting the ambiguous definition provided for Manifestation in FRBR, namely F3 Manifestation Product Type and F4 Manifestation Singleton. Whereas F3 Manifestation Product Type is declared as a subclass of the CIDOC CRM class E55 Type, and therefore as a subclass, too, of the CIDOC CRM class E28 Conceptual Object (a merely abstract notion), F4 Manifestation Singleton is declared as a subclass of the CIDOC CRM class E24 Physical Man-Made Thing, and therefore as a subclass, too, of the CIDOC CRM class E18 Physical Thing.

31. Manifestation Product Type
“This class comprises the definitions of publication products.”
Example:The publication product containing the cartographic resource titled ‘Ordnance Survey Explorer Map 213, Aberystwyth & Cwm Rheidol’, issued in May 2005 by the publisher named ‘Ordnance Survey’ and identified by ISBN ‘ ’ (folded), 1:25,000 scale

32. Manifestation Singleton
“This class comprises physical objects that each carry an instance of Expression, and that were produced as unique objects, with no siblings intended in the course of their production”
Example: The manuscript known as ‘The Book of Kells’

33. FRBRoo Manifestations
The Manifestation entity is defined in FRBR in such a way that it could be interpreted as something physical and conceptual at the same time: it is defined at the same time as “the physical embodiment of an expression of a work” and as an entity that “represents all the physical objects that bear the same characteristics,” i.e., as both a physical artefact and a (mental) representation of physical artefacts (a set). The Manifestation covers either a manuscript (in which case Manifestation overlaps with Item) or a publication (in which case Manifestation is both a Type and an Information Object)
FRBRoo strives to solve such logical inconsistencies, and had to “split” the Manifestation entity into two distinct classes, corresponding to the two possible ways of interpreting the ambiguous definition provided for Manifestation in FRBR, namely F3 Manifestation Product Type and F4 Manifestation Singleton. Whereas F3 Manifestation Product Type is declared as a subclass of the CIDOC CRM class E55 Type, and therefore as a subclass, too, of the CIDOC CRM class E28 Conceptual Object (a merely abstract notion), F4 Manifestation Singleton is declared as a subclass of the CIDOC CRM class E24 Physical Man-Made Thing, and therefore as a subclass, too, of the CIDOC CRM class E18 Physical Thing.

34. FRBRoo Publishing example

35. Conclusions FRBR has been improved using CRM
CRM has great potential as a universal model for all types of ‘information’
Can a ‘structured’ search engine be the end result of better/unified models/descriptions?
Future tasks will involve the examination of all other FRBR entities (Person, Group, Concept, Place, Event, and Object), of all FRAR entities that are not mentioned in FRBR, and of all relationships described in both FRBR and FRAR. In addition FRSAR, when developed, will have to be taken into account, too. The resulting picture will be formalised and stabilised, and will result in a full-length description of FRBRoo, which will be submitted for approval to both the CIDOC CRM SIG and the IFLA FRBR Review Group (and the IFLA Cataloguing Section). It is expected that FRBRoo will be regarded as a new, “official” release of the IFLA FRBR model.
FRBRoo will be used for implementation purposes, most notably in the context of integrated information system design and Semantic Web activities

36. Acknowledgements
Martin Doerr / Modelling Intellectual Processes: The object-orient FRBR Model. Gothenburg, Sweden September 12,
Steven Stead / The CIDOC CRM : a standard for the integration of cultural information.
FRBR (“Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records”) This entity-relationship model was developed on behalf of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) from 1991 to 1997, and published in 1998 by Saur. The IFLA Cataloguing Section appointed in 2002 a Review Group to maintain it and ensure its evolution, on the same pattern as the IFLA ISBD Review Group ensures the evolution of ISBDs. The FRBR model covers “textual, music, cartographic, audio-visual, graphic, three-dimensional materials” (FRBR Final Report, p. 7).

37. Questions?
FRBR (“Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records”) This entity-relationship model was developed on behalf of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) from 1991 to 1997, and published in 1998 by Saur. The IFLA Cataloguing Section appointed in 2002 a Review Group to maintain it and ensure its evolution, on the same pattern as the IFLA ISBD Review Group ensures the evolution of ISBDs. The FRBR model covers “textual, music, cartographic, audio-visual, graphic, three-dimensional materials” (FRBR Final Report, p. 7).