The charts available from this page map several important metadata
standards to one another, showing where they intersect
and how their coverage differs. Each of these standards
can be said to represent
a different "point of view" — while Categories
for the Description of Works of Art provides broad, encompassing
guidelines for the information elements needed
to describe an art object from
a scholarly or research point of view, Object ID codifies
the minimum set of data elements needed to protect
or recover an object from
theft and illicit traffic. The CIMI schema defines
data elements for detailed museum information.
The FDA guidelines focus
on architectural documents, while the VRA Core Categories describe
both the original work of art or architecture and
its visual surrogate (the CDWA also
includes data elements for visual surrogates; while
VRA focuses on the surrogate, CDWA provides much
richer, more detailed information
for the original work). USMARC is a time-tested
metadata standard used in the library world, while
the Dublin
Core metadata element
set seeks to provide basic information elements
to improve indexing and retrieval of resources
on the Web.
Other cultural heritage metadata standards that are not included
here are the AMICO (Art Museum Image Consortium) data dictionary,
SPECTRUM, a standard developed for museums in the UK; the CIDOC Guidelines
for Museum Object Information; and the International Council of Museums
AFRICOM data standard, all of which map to Categories for the Description
of Works of Art.
