The CDWA maps to and/or is the basis of several other metadata standards for describing works of art and material culture. A selection of these standards are listed below. Please see the Metadata Standards Crosswalk for mapping between specific metadata sets.
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Cataloging Cultural Objects (CCO): provides guidelines for selecting, ordering, and formatting data used to populate catalog records based on core categories in CDWA (containing elements and rules) and VRA Core (containing elements); as a content standard, it is more analagous to AACR and DACS; published by the American Library Association (ALA)
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CDWA Lite an XML schema used to describe core records for works of art and material culture based on CDWA and CCO
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Lightweight Information Describing Objects (LIDO): outlines an XML harvesting schema intended for delivering metadata from an organization’s online collections database to portals of aggregated resources, as well as for exposing, sharing, and connecting data on the web; it is not intended to be used as a basis for a collection management system or to support loan acquisition activities
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VRA Core: developed by the Visual Resources Association (VRA); outlines an XML schema based on CDWA and CCO
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FDA/ADAG Guide to the Description of Architectural Drawings: developed by the Foundation for Documents of Architecture (FDA) and the Architectural Drawing Advisory Group (ADAG); includes additional data categories and content rules regarding the description of architectural drawings
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Object ID: a small subset of CDWA categories developed to help identify objects for the purpose of protecting them as cultural property; in the case of theft, the information gathered and recorded using the Object ID norm can be checked against other databases of stolen artefacts (i.e., INTERPOL)
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MARC: mapped to CDWA; provides formats and standards for the representation of bibliographic and related information in machine-readable form to facilitate information exchange between systems
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Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (AACR2): content standard including instructions for describing library materials and for the establishment of access points for the creators of these materials; as of 2013, AACR2 is no longer actively maintained as it has been replaced by RDA
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Resource Description and Access (RDA): a new set of cataloging instructions based on the Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD) and Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR); designed to replace AACR2; provides a content standard to inform the production of description, name, and title access points representing a bibliographic resource
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Dublin Core: mapped to CDWA; a simple, general purpose element set for describing a wide range of networked resources; maintained by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative,
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Encoded Archival Description (EAD): mapped to CDWA; provides an XML standard for encoding archival finding aids, maintained by the Society of American Archivsits’ Technical Subcommittee for Encoded Archival Standards in partnership with the Library of Congress
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METS: mapped to CDWA; a data encoding and transmission specification, expressed in XML, that provides the means to convey the necessary metadata for both the management of digital objects within a repository and the exchange of such objects between repositories (or between repositories and their users)
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Metadata Object Description Scheme (MODS): provides a schema for a bibliographic element set that may be used to carry selected data from a subset of the MARC 21 records as well as to enable the creation of original resource description records; maintained by the Library of Congress’s Network Development and MARC Standards Office
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Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS): mapped to CDWA; provides an output-neutral set of content standards for describing archives, personal papers,manuscript collections, and a variety of other resources; serves as the U.S. implementation of international standards (i.e., ISAD[G] and ISAAR[CPF]) for the description of archival materials and their creators
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Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) Data Specification: Data Dictionary: defines fields used in Catalog Records (based in CDWA) and Media Metadata Records (based in Dublin Core)
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CIDOC’s International Guidelines for Museum Object Information: describes information categories that can be used when developing records about objects in museum collections; published by the International Council of Museum (ICOM)'s International Committee for Documentation
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CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM): mapped to CDWA (mapping subject to change as Getty implements CRM in the Getty Vocabularies); provides definitions and a schema agnostic ontology for describing the implicit and explicit concepts/relationships used in cultural heritage documentation and of general interest for the querying/exploration of such cultural heritage data; published by ICOM’s International Committee for Documentation
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Spectrum: the UK’s collection management standard; offers guidance on cataloging and collection use; published by the Museum Documentation Association (MDA) and mantained by Collections Trust
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Cultural Objects Name Authority (CONA) and other Getty Vocabularies: mapped to CDWA’s Authorities categories; provides a structured vocabulary containing authority records for cultural works, including architectural and moveable works such as paintings, sculpture, and prints, whether extant, destroyed, or conceptual; linked to the Union List of Artist Names (ULAN), Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN), Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), and Iconography Authoirty (IA) for the purpose of controlling values and allowing more efficient access; published and mantained by the Getty Research Institute’s Vocabulary Program
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Linked.Art: mapped to CDWA (see here); a shared model based on Linked Open Usable Data to describe cultural heritage with a particular focus on art
Revised 1 August 2024
by Emily Benoff