Dear All
Please vote "YES" for accept, "NO" for not accept:
Background
Proposal by Franco Niccolucci (9 January 2022)
With other colleagues, I am translating into Italian the CIDOC CRM
documentation. This forced me to (or if you prefer, it gave me the
opportunity of) reading it with great attention to minute details.
On page 10 of the Introduction I found a couple of things that may need
to be changed: both are in the bottom of the page describing the CRM
Intended Scope, where some expressions used in such description are
explained in greater detail.
1. In the first bullet point, the term “scientific and scholarly
documentation” is explained as compliant to the quality level “expected
and required by museum professionals and researchers in the field.” What
about archaeologists, architectural historians etc.? I would replace
this statement with “expected and required by heritageprofessionals and
researchers in the field.”, which would also expand the “field” beyond
museology as implied by the other formulation, which is also
contradictory with the much wider ambit listed in the second bullet.
2. In the second bullet point the meaning of the term “available
documented and material evidence” is explained. Actually, a different
expression was used in the previous text, being clarified here;
“available documented andempiricalevidence”. When defining a term, I
think it is preferable to avoid using different albeit equivalent
expressions. Moreover, the equivalence of “empirical” and “material” is
debatable: according to my Oxford dictionary
empirical = based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or
experience rather than theory or pure logic
material = denoting or consisting of physical objects rather than the
mind or spirit
I may agree with “empirical” but I am not sure I would agree with
“material”.
As you can see, this is a fussy comment. But the devil is in the
details... and in this case a naughty commenter (not my case) might
think that both are Freudian slips :)
3. In the third and fourth bullet points, collections are addressed. But
the third point considers “cultural heritage collections” and the fourth
“museum collections”, actually in the same copy-paste sentence. Is this
difference intentional, or again a slip? I imagine in both cases
“cultural heritage collections” must be used.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROPOSAL:
OLD:
Scope of the CIDOC CRM
The overall scope of the CIDOC CRM can be summarised in simple terms as
the curated, factual knowledge about the past at a human scale.
However, a more detailed and useful definition can be articulated by
defining both the Intended Scope, a broad and maximally-inclusive
definition of general application principles, and the Practical Scope,
which is expressed by the overall scope of a growing reference set of
specific, identifiable documentation standards and practices that the
CIDOC CRM aims to semantically describe, restricted, always, in its
details to the limitations of the Intended Scope.
The reasons for this distinctions between Intended and Practical Scope
are twofold. Firstly, the CIDOC CRM is developed in a “bottom-up”
manner, starting from well-understood, actually and widely used concepts
of domain experts, which are disambiguated and gradually generalized as
more forms of encoding are encountered. This aims to avoid the
misadaptations and vagueness that can sometimes be found in
introspection-driven attempts to find overarching concepts for such a
wide scope, and provides stability to the generalizations found.
Secondly, it is a means to identify and keep a focus on the concepts
most needed by the communities working in the scope of the CIDOC CRM and
to maintain a well-defined agenda for its evolution.
The Intended Scope of the CIDOC CRM may, therefore, be defined as all
information required for the exchange and integration of heterogeneous
scientific and scholarly documentation about the past at a human scale
and the available documented and empirical evidence for this. This
definition requires further elaboration:
· The term “scientific and scholarly documentation” is intended to
convey the requirement that the depth and quality of descriptive
information that can be handled by the CIDOC CRM should be sufficient
for serious academic research. This does not mean that information
intended for presentation to members of the general public is excluded,
but rather that the CRM is intended to provide the level of detail and
precision expected and required by heritage professionals and
researchers in the field.
· As “available documented and material evidence” are regarded all
types of material collected and displayed by museums and related
institutions, as defined by ICOM[1], and other collections, in-situ
objects, sites, monuments and intangible heritage relating to fields
such as social history, ethnography, archaeology, fine and applied arts,
natural history, history of sciences and technology.
· The concept “documentation” includes the detailed description of
individual items, in situ or within collections, groups of items and
collections as a whole, as well as practices of intangible heritage. It
pertains to their current state as well as to information about their
past. The CIDOC CRM is specifically intended to cover contextual
information: the historical, geographical and theoretical background
that gives cultural heritage collectionsmuch of their cultural
significance and value.
· The documentation of collections includes the detailed description
of individual items within collections, groups of items and collections
as a whole. The CIDOC CRM is specifically intended to cover contextual
information: the historical, geographical and theoretical background
that gives museum collections much of their cultural significance and value.
*NEW:*
Scope of the CIDOC CRM
The overall scope of the CIDOC CRM can be summarised in simple terms as
the curated, factual knowledge about the past at a human scale.
However, a more detailed and useful definition can be articulated by
defining both the Intended Scope, a broad and maximally-inclusive
definition of general application principles, and the Practical Scope,
which is expressed by the overall scope of a growing reference set of
specific, identifiable documentation standards and practices that the
CIDOC CRM aims to semantically describe, restricted, always, in its
details to the limitations of the Intended Scope.
The reasons for this distinctions between Intended and Practical Scope
are twofold. Firstly, the CIDOC CRM is developed in a “bottom-up”
manner, starting from well-understood, actually and widely used concepts
of domain experts, which are disambiguated and gradually generalized as
more forms of encoding are encountered. This aims to avoid the
misadaptations and vagueness that can sometimes be found in
introspection-driven attempts to find overarching concepts for such a
wide scope, and provides stability to the generalizations found.
Secondly, it is a means to identify and keep a focus on the concepts
most needed by the communities working in the scope of the CIDOC CRM and
to maintain a well-defined agenda for its evolution.
The Intended Scope of the CIDOC CRM may, therefore, be defined as all
information required for the exchange and integration of heterogeneous
scientific and scholarly documentation about the past at a human scale
and the available documented and empirical evidence for this. This
definition requires further elaboration:
· The term “scientific and scholarly documentation” is intended to
convey the requirement that the depth and quality of descriptive
information that can be handled by the CIDOC CRM should be sufficient
for serious academic research. This does not mean that information
intended for presentation to members of the general public is excluded,
but rather that the CRM is intended to provide the level of detail and
precision expected and required by heritage professionals engaged in
cultural and scientific heritage and researchers in these fields.
· As “available documented and empirical material evidence” are
regarded all types of material collected and displayed by museums and
related institutions, as defined by ICOM[1], and other collections of
things providing evidence about the past, in-situ objects, sites,
monuments and intangible heritage relating to fields such as social
history, ethnography, archaeology, fine and applied arts, natural
history, history of sciences and technology.
· The concept “documentation” includes the detailed description of
individual items, in situ or within collections, groups of items and
collections as a whole, as well as practices of intangible heritage. It
pertains to their current state as well as to information about their
past. The CIDOC CRM is specifically intended to cover contextual
information: the historical, geographical and theoretical background
that gives cultural heritage collectionsmuch of their cultural
significance and value.
· Delete the fourth paragraph, it is repeating the third!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1]The ICOM Statutes provide a definition of the term “museum” at
http://icom.museum/statutes.html#2
The term “should” is used in the sense of a binding recommendation by
the standards. This is what users adhering to the standard have to do.
It “should” be consistently used throughout the document.
--
------------------------------------
Dr. Martin Doerr
Honorary Head of the
Center for Cultural Informatics
Information Systems Laboratory
Institute of Computer Science
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton,
GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece
Vox:+30(2810)391625
Email:mar...@ics.forth.gr
Web-site:http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl
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