Dear Martin, There are several examples of the use of MDA codes in the CRM itself - See the examples for E42, P3, P38 and P48. "OXCMS" code and syntax is correct but I suspect that the full objects and numbers are bogus (probably made up by myself when Nick and I spent a weekend in Oxford writing scope notes and drinking Calvados).
However, I did a quick Google of OXCMS (since I know this to be a genuine MDA code) and found the following article: http://witneyblanketstory.org.uk/WBP.asp?page=details&navigationPage=Gallery &mwsquery=%7BKey%20objects%7D=%7B%7D&filename=WBPOBJT.MDF&wbpSearchStart=8 This shows an photograph with the accession number OXCMS:1976.27.67. In this instance the syntax begins with the MDA code followed by the accession number. Oxfordshire County Museum Service usually follow a Year.Number.Sub-Number format so this is the 27th item or group of items to be accessioned in 1976, and the 67th item in that accessioned group. The entire group could be referenced by OXCMS:1976.27. A key thing to note is that the MDA codes makes no assumption about where the object is kept (there are OXCMS items on display in the Pitt Rivers Museum on long-term loan and the Country Museum Service itself serves a number of museums, including The Museum of Oxford; Vale and Downland Museum, Wantage; Abingdon Museum; County Museum, Woodstock; & Cogges Manor Farm Museum, Witney). Nor does it say anything about ownership - There are items in the Oxfordshire County Museum Service Collection that are on long-term loan and do not actually belong to Oxfordshire Museums. I believe that more than 2500 MDA codes have been issued, some probably for museums that no longer exist (which also means that while any given MDA code/accession number combination can only, at its lowest sub number, refer to one object, it is possible that one object could over the course of time acquire more than one MDA code/accession number combination). I was not quite correct in saying that these are 5-letter codes. It would be more accurate to say that they are usually 5-letter codes (some are shorter).For more information on the codes, including a list of all those issued, see the following: http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/mdacodes I am sure that Gordon McKenna would be able to bring you up-to-date on current thinking. Best wishes, Matthew -----Original Message----- From: martin [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 15 December 2008 13:35 To: Matthew Stiff Cc: 'Vadim Soshkin'; 'Vladimir Ivanov'; 'crm-sig'; [email protected] Subject: Re: [Crm-sig] Fwd: URI policies Hi Matthew, That's very interesting. Could you give us some pointers and an actual example of such a UID? Is there a URN form or not? Matthew Stiff wrote: > I don't know of any international registries but in the UK the Collections > Trust (formerly MDA) maintains a list of unique codes allocated to museums > for documentation purposes (intended to be machine readable). These are > five-letter alphabetical codes (an example of which is contained in a CRM > scope note....). For example, the code OXCMS: is used for Oxfordshire County > Museums Service. The scheme is voluntary but widely used to ensure that all > museum objects in the UK have a UID. I guess that this could be made > internationally unique by adding an ISO country prefix. But the CRM is > supposed to represent actual documentation practice and unless similar > schemes exist on a worldwide basis this wouldn't take us much further... Of course our job is to make proposals for future good practice. In parallel, we can think of using domain names etc. as surrogates for museums, or not? Best, Martin > > Best wishes, > > Matthew > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:crm-sig-bounc > Behalf Of Vadim Soshkin > Sent: 01 December 2008 15:24 > To: Martin Doer; Vladimir Ivanov > Cc: crm-sig; [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Crm-sig] Fwd: URI policies > > Dear Martin, > > You are right museum object could be identified by museum local identifiers > and global identifier of the museum itself. But I do not know any registry > to provide unique identification of museum. Do you have suggestions how to > uniquely identify museum? > > Thanks and best regards > > Vadim > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of martin > Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2008 1:50 PM > To: Vladimir Ivanov > Cc: crm-sig; [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Crm-sig] Fwd: URI policies > > > Dear Vladimir, > > The point is not if the URIs are human readable. The question is, if we have > cataloguing rules, that could allow a larger group to come up with the same > URI, > without creating one identifier for two things. If I call you > xxx578o900yybnn, > I have to reconcile every reference to you. We cannot avoid that in general, > but we could create some reasonable rules to reduce the number of > negotiations. > AACR2 is a good example from library science. > > Since a museum object is at one place at a time, its current location is > unique, as is > its current inventory number. These numbers are publicly known. Why should I > call the > object xjdisugfvisg, once we could find a more reasonable URI? > > We could at least reduce some complexity of the co-reference problem. > The same holds for people registered in authority files, as long as we are > sure > whom we talk about. > > Best, > > Martin > > Vladimir Ivanov wrote: >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Vladimir Ivanov <[email protected]> >> Date: 2008/11/29 >> Subject: Re: [Crm-sig] URI policies >> To: Guenther Goerz <[email protected]> >> >> >> Dear Guenther , >> >> 2008/11/29 Guenther Goerz <[email protected]>: >>> Dear all, >>> >>> just a brief remark and a recommendation >>> >>> On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 12:46 PM, Vladimir Ivanov <[email protected]> > wrote: >>>> Dear all, >>>> >>>> Why do we need human-readable URIs? >>> Well, because occasionally humans read code and this case a label such >>> as "reply-to-vladimir" has some advantage over "wrzlpfrmpft", although >>> my machine doesn't care. >> ;) >> I mean, why do we need human-readable URIs (for machine processing >> resources, tasks, etc.)? >> >> It's clear to me, that the first label ("reply-to-vladimir") is ambiguous, >> according to multiple senses of "vladimir". >> The second one ("wrzlpfrmpft") means nothing at all. >> >> In both cases, we need additional information >> to understand that meaning (if we want to). >> >> It's good for CRM classes and properties to have readable labels. >> Martin's question was also about instances (e.g. museum objects). >> >> Best, >> Vladimir >>> But, jokes aside: The "Cool URIs" paper >>> http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-cooluris-20071217/ >>> may provide a constructive answer to Martin's original request. >>> >>> Regards, >>> -- Guenther >>> >>>> Any row in a certain database table could be identified by unique >>>> (surrogate) key. >>>> An algorithm should only generate different URI for different resources. >>>> So, we need to define a difference between resources (or their > representations). >>>> If identifier should not have any additional inner structure (and > meaning), >>>> then we could use GUID. >>>> >>>> For example, "http://url.de/E19_ZZZ";, where ZZZ is GUID. >>>> Add name or content of resource into URI is not a very good idea. >>>> >>>> Alternatively, we could use hashing and add any desirable structure into > URI. >>>> For example, "http://url.de/cityname_streetname_HASHCODE";. >>>> >>>> How to make a URI out of DNA? >>>> >>> Best regards, >>>> Vladimir >>>> >>>> >>>> 2008/11/27 martin <[email protected]>: >>>>> Dear All, >>>>> >>>>> I suggest to discuss in more details policies to use URIs in RDF or OWL > instances. >>>>> For instance, how to describe a museum: >>>>> >>>>> How to distinguish the Website from the Actor, if we refer to the > museums domain name: >>>>> MUSEUM/http://www.gnm.de/ ? >>>>> >>>>> http://www.gnm.de/MUSEUM ? >>>>> http://www.gnm.de/ACTOR? >>>>> >>>>> If we have a museum URI, we could generate all object IDs by inventory > number + museum URL: >>>>> http://www.gnm.de/OBJECT/AB_45678900_1870 ? >>>>> http://www.gnm.de/PHYSICAL_OBJECT/... ? >>>>> http://www.gnm.de/CRM_E19/... ? >>>>> >>>>> Does anyone know, if the Getty ULAN suggests a good practice for URIs > for ULAN entries? >>>>> I believe these are issues that should be easy to resolve, and should > be quickly resolved. >>>>> More complicated: How to you make a URI out of an postal address. Any > idea, examples??? >>>>> Best, >>>>> >>>>> Martin >>>>> -- >>>>> >>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> Dr. Martin Doerr | Vox:+30(2810)391625 | >>>>> Principle Researcher | Fax:+30(2810)391638 | >>>>> | Email: [email protected] | >>>>> | >>>>> Center for Cultural Informatics | >>>>> Information Systems Laboratory | >>>>> Institute of Computer Science | >>>>> Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH) | >>>>> | >>>>> Vassilika Vouton,P.O.Box1385,GR71110 Heraklion,Crete,Greece | >>>>> | >>>>> Web-site: http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl | >>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Crm-sig mailing list >>>>> [email protected] >>>>> http://lists.ics.forth.gr/mailman/listinfo/crm-sig >>>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Crm-sig mailing list >>>> [email protected] >>>> http://lists.ics.forth.gr/mailman/listinfo/crm-sig >>>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Crm-sig mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.ics.forth.gr/mailman/listinfo/crm-sig >> > > -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Martin Doerr | Vox:+30(2810)391625 | Principle Researcher | Fax:+30(2810)391638 | | Email: [email protected] | | Center for Cultural Informatics | Information Systems Laboratory | Institute of Computer Science | Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH) | | Vassilika Vouton,P.O.Box1385,GR71110 Heraklion,Crete,Greece | | Web-site: http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl | --------------------------------------------------------------
