A time length. A duration is a specialisation of E54 Dimension providing a measure of time.
A measurement unit of durations and periods of time like second, hour, day, year or century
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the crm:E7 Activity class.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the crm:E23 Physical Human-Made Thing class.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of F5 Item.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the Expression – F2 class.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the Manifestation Product Type – F3 class.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the 'crm:E74 Group'.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of F4 Manifestation Singleton.
A numeric dimension is a specialisation of the crm:E54 Dimension class modeling measured quantities like the number (of items) or a percentage, that have, strictly speaking, no measurement unit but need to be specified by a type in order to capture the meaning of the measured value. E.g. 10 has not the same meaning as number (of items) or percentage. A specific vocabulary will allow to distinguish between the different scenarios.
This class model the type of a numeric dimension without measurement unit. Its instances, like number (of items), percentage, permille (per thousand), etc. allow to understand the meaning of the measured quantity.
A measure of length. A lenght is a specialisation of E54 Dimension providing a measure of distance, height, etc.
A measurement unit of length like mile, inch, meter, micron, etc.
The measurement unit of weight, like pound, kilogram, etc.
Measurable amount of space of a flat surface
The measurement unit of an area, e.g. a square yard, acre, square meter, hectare, etc.
A measurement unit of volume, like pint, liter, gallon, etc.
Amount of space that an object fills or a container has
This class models any measurable monetary value. It is equivalent to the crm:E97 Monetary amount class, defined as "This class comprises quantities of monetary possessions or obligations in terms of their nominal value with respect to a particular currency. [...]" in CIDOC CRM version 6.2.9.
This class models a social object allowing to standardize the money used in a community or country. It is equivalent to crm:E98 currency defined as "This class comprises the units in which a monetary system, supported by an administrative authority or other community, quantifies and arithmetically compares all monetary amounts declared in the unit. [...]" in CIDOC CRM version 6.2.9.
A type of identifier(social security number, database identifier, etc.). For URIs in the sense of the Semantic Web, cf. the subclass of identifier crm-sup:C30 Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) which should be preferred.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the crm:E78 Collection class.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the crm:E54 Dimension class.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the crm:E54 Information Object Type class.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the frbroo:F31 Performance class.
A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a unique sequence of characters that identifies a logical or physical resource used by Semantic Web technologies.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the crm:E9 Move class.
This class comprises types of observed entities.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the frbroo:F18 Serial Work class.
This class comprises types of purposes for activities or mentioned in texts, etc. The purposed themselves, as individuals, should be expressed as propositional objects and the present concepts classify several purposes belonging to the same type.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the crm:E89 Propositional Object class.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the crm:E21 Person. This class should not be used to express activities, social roles or institutional functions of persons (for these there are specific classes), but only to provide a generally acceptable classification of sets of persons in the perspective of a research question.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of the crm:E5 Event class. This kind of types are useful for providing the identity of generic instances of the Event class. If specific properties related to a specific Event type are needed, then a subclass of Event should be produced.
This class comprises identifiable immaterial items that can be represented as sets of bit sequences, such as data sets, e-texts, images, audio or video items, software, etc., and are documented as single units. Any aggregation of instances of D1 Digital Object into a whole treated as single unit is also regarded as an instance of D1 Digital Object. This means that for instance, the content of a DVD, an XML file on it, and an element of this file, are regarded as distinct instances of D1 Digital Object, mutually related by the P106 is composed of (forms part of) property. A D1 Digital Object does not depend on a specific physical carrier, and it can exist on one or more carriers simultaneously.
This class comprises all things in the universe of discourse of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model. It is an abstract concept providing for three general properties: Identification by name or appellation, and in particular by a preferred identifier Classification by type, allowing further refinement of the specific subclass an instance belongs to Attachment of free text for the expression of anything not captured by formal properties With the exception of E59 Primitive Value, all other classes within the CRM are directly or indirectly specialisations of E1 CRM Entity.
This class comprises all phenomena, such as the instances of E4 Periods, E5 Events and states, which happen over a limited extent in time. This extent in time must be contiguous, i.e., without gaps. In case the defining kinds of phenomena for an instance of E2 Temporal Entity cease to happen, and occur later again at another time, we regard that the former E2 Temporal Entity has ended and a new instance has come into existence. In more intuitive terms, the same event cannot happen twice. In some contexts, these are also called perdurants. This class is disjoint from E77 Persistent Item. This is an abstract class and has no direct instances. E2 Temporal Entity is specialized into E4 Period, which applies to a particular geographic area (defined with a greater or lesser degree of precision), and E3 Condition State, which applies to instances of E18 Physical Thing.
This class comprises sets of coherent phenomena or cultural manifestations occurring in time and space. It is the social or physical coherence of these phenomena that identify an E4 Period and not the associated spatiotemporal extent. This extent is only the "ground" or space in an abstract physical sense that the actual process of growth, spread and retreat has covered. Consequently, different periods can overlap and coexist in time and space, such as when a nomadic culture exists in the same area and time as a sedentary culture. This also means that overlapping land use rights, common among first nations, amounts to overlapping periods. Often, this class is used to describe prehistoric or historic periods such as the "Neolithic Period", the "Ming Dynasty" or the "McCarthy Era", but also geopolitical units and activities of settlements are regarded as special cases of E4 Period. However, there are no assumptions about the scale of the associated phenomena. In particular all events are seen as synthetic processes consisting of coherent phenomena. Therefore E4 Period is a superclass of E5 Event. For example, a modern clinical E67 Birth can be seen as both an atomic E5 Event and as an E4 Period that consists of multiple activities performed by multiple instances of E39 Actor. As the actual extent of an E4 Period in spacetime we regard the trajectories of the participating physical things during their participation in an instance of E4 Period. This includes the open spaces via which these things have interacted and the spaces by which they had the potential to interact during that period or event in the way defined by the type of the respective period or event. Examples include the air in a meeting room transferring the voices of the participants. Since these phenomena are fuzzy, we assume the spatiotemporal extent to be contiguous, except for cases of phenomena spreading out over islands or other separated areas, including geopolitical units distributed over disconnected areas such as islands or colonies. Whether the trajectories necessary for participants to travel between these areas are regarded as part of the spatiotemporal extent or not has to be decided in each case based on a concrete analysis, taking use of the sea for other purposes than travel, such as fishing, into consideration. One may also argue that the activities to govern disconnected areas imply travelling through spaces connecting them and that these areas hence are spatially connected in a way, but it appears counterintuitive to consider for instance travel routes in international waters as extensions of geopolitical units. Consequently, an instance of E4 Period may occupy a number of disjoint spacetime volumes, however there must not be a discontinuity in the timespan covered by these spacetime volumes. This means that an instance of E4 Period must be contiguous in time. If it has ended in all areas, it has ended as a whole. However it may end in one area before another, such as in the Polynesian migration, and it continues as long as it is ongoing in at least one area. We model E4 Period as a subclass of E2 Temporal Entity and of E92 Spacetime volume. The latter is intended as a phenomenal spacetime volume as defined in CRMgeo (Doerr and Hiebel 2013). By virtue of this multiple inheritance we can discuss the physical extent of an E4 Period without representing each instance of it together with an instance of its associated spacetime volume. This model combines two quite different kinds of substance: an instance of E4 Period is a phenomena while a space-time volume is an aggregation of points in spacetime. However, the real spatiotemporal extent of an instance of E4 Period is regarded to be unique to it due to all its details and fuzziness; its identity and existence depends uniquely on the identity of the instance of E4 Period. Therefore this multiple inheritance is unambiguous and effective and furthermore corresponds to the intuitions of natural language. There are two different conceptualisations of 'artistic style', defined either by physical features or by historical context. For example, “Impressionism” can be viewed as a period lasting from approximately 1870 to 1905 during which paintings with particular characteristics were produced by a group of artists that included (among others) Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and Degas. Alternatively, it can be regarded as a style applicable to all paintings sharing the characteristics of the works produced by the Impressionist painters, regardless of historical context. The first interpretation is an instance of E4 Period, and the second defines morphological object types that fall under E55 Type. Another specific case of an E4 Period is the set of activities and phenomena associated with a settlement, such as the populated period of Nineveh.
This class comprises changes of states in cultural, social or physical systems, regardless of scale, brought about by a series or group of coherent physical, cultural, technological or legal phenomena. Such changes of state will affect instances of E77 Persistent Item or its subclasses. The distinction between an E5 Event and an E4 Period is partly a question of the scale of observation. Viewed at a coarse level of detail, an E5 Event is an ‘instantaneous’ change of state. At a fine level, the E5 Event can be analysed into its component phenomena within a space and time frame, and as such can be seen as an E4 Period. The reverse is not necessarily the case: not all instances of E4 Period give rise to a noteworthy change of state.
This class comprises actions intentionally carried out by instances of E39 Actor that result in changes of state in the cultural, social, or physical systems documented. This notion includes complex, composite and long-lasting actions such as the building of a settlement or a war, as well as simple, short-lived actions such as the opening of a door.
This class comprises changes of the physical location of the instances of E19 Physical Object. Note, that the class E9 Move inherits the property P7 took place at (witnessed): E53 Place. This property should be used to describe the trajectory or a larger area within which a move takes place, whereas the properties P26 moved to (was destination of), P27 moved from (was origin of) describe the start and end points only. Moves may also be documented to consist of other moves (via P9 consists of (forms part of)), in order to describe intermediate stages on a trajectory. In that case, start and end points of the partial moves should match appropriately between each other and with the overall event.
This class comprises the actions of making assertions about properties of an object or any relation between two items or concepts. This class allows the documentation of how the respective assignment came about, and whose opinion it was. All the attributes or properties assigned in such an action can also be seen as directly attached to the respective item or concept, possibly as a collection of contradictory values. All cases of properties in this model that are also described indirectly through an action are characterised as "short cuts" of this action. This redundant modelling of two alternative views is preferred because many implementations may have good reasons to model either the action or the short cut, and the relation between both alternatives can be captured by simple rules. In particular, the class describes the actions of people making propositions and statements during certain museum procedures, e.g. the person and date when a condition statement was made, an identifier was assigned, the museum object was measured, etc. Which kinds of such assignments and statements need to be documented explicitly in structures of a schema rather than free text, depends on if this information should be accessible by structured queries.
This class comprises all persistent physical items with a relatively stable form, man-made or natural. Depending on the existence of natural boundaries of such things, the CRM distinguishes the instances of E19 Physical Object from instances of E26 Physical Feature, such as holes, rivers, pieces of land etc. Most instances of E19 Physical Object can be moved (if not too heavy), whereas features are integral to the surrounding matter. An instance of E18 Physical Thing occupies not only a particular geometric space, but in the course of its existence it also forms a trajectory through spacetime, which occupies a real, that is phenomenal, volume in spacetime. We include in the occupied space the space filled by the matter of the physical thing and all its inner spaces, such as the interior of a box. Physical things consisting of aggregations of physically unconnected objects, such as a set of chessmen, occupy a number of individually contiguous spacetime volumes equal to the number of unconnected objects that constitute the set. We model E18 Physical Thing to be a subclass of E72 Legal Object and of E92 Spacetime volume. The latter is intended as a phenomenal spacetime volume as defined in CRMgeo (Doerr and Hiebel 2013). By virtue of this multiple inheritance we can discuss the physical extent of an E18 Physical Thing without representing each instance of it together with an instance of its associated spacetime volume. This model combines two quite different kinds of substance: an instance of E18 Physical Thing is matter while a spacetime volume is an aggregation of points in spacetime. However, the real spatiotemporal extent of an instance of E18 Physical Thing is regarded to be unique to it, due to all its details and fuzziness; its identity and existence depends uniquely on the identity of the instance of E18 Physical Thing. Therefore this multiple inheritance is unambiguous and effective and furthermore corresponds to the intuitions of natural language. The CIDOC CRM is generally not concerned with amounts of matter in fluid or gaseous states.
This class comprises items of a material nature that are units for documentation and have physical boundaries that separate them completely in an objective way from other objects. The class also includes all aggregates of objects made for functional purposes of whatever kind, independent of physical coherence, such as a set of chessmen. Typically, instances of E19 Physical Object can be moved (if not too heavy). In some contexts, such objects, except for aggregates, are also called “bona fide objects” (Smith Varzi, 2000, pp.401-420), i.e. naturally defined objects. The decision as to what is documented as a complete item, rather than by its parts or components, may be a purely administrative decision or may be a result of the order in which the item was acquired.
This class comprises individual items of a material nature, which live, have lived or are natural products of or from living organisms. Artificial objects that incorporate biological elements, such as Victorian butterfly frames, can be documented as both instances of E20 Biological Object and E22 Man-Made Object.
This class comprises real persons who live or are assumed to have lived. Legendary figures that may have existed, such as Ulysses and King Arthur, fall into this class if the documentation refers to them as historical figures. In cases where doubt exists as to whether several persons are in fact identical, multiple instances can be created and linked to indicate their relationship. The CRM does not propose a specific form to support reasoning about possible identity.
This class comprises physical objects purposely created by human activity. No assumptions are made as to the extent of modification required to justify regarding an object as man-made. For example, an inscribed piece of rock or a preserved butterfly are both regarded as instances of E22 Man-Made Object.
This class comprises all persistent physical items that are purposely created by human activity. This class comprises man-made objects, such as a swords, and man-made features, such as rock art. No assumptions are made as to the extent of modification required to justify regarding an object as man-made. For example, a “cup and ring” carving on bedrock is regarded as instance of E24 Physical Man-Made Thing.
This class comprises non-material products of our minds and other human produced data that have become objects of a discourse about their identity, circumstances of creation or historical implication. The production of such information may have been supported by the use of technical devices such as cameras or computers. Characteristically, instances of this class are created, invented or thought by someone, and then may be documented or communicated between persons. Instances of E28 Conceptual Object have the ability to exist on more than one particular carrier at the same time, such as paper, electronic signals, marks, audio media, paintings, photos, human memories, etc. They cannot be destroyed. They exist as long as they can be found on at least one carrier or in at least one human memory. Their existence ends when the last carrier and the last memory are lost.
This class comprises people, either individually or in groups, who have the potential to perform intentional actions of kinds for which someone may be held responsible. The CRM does not attempt to model the inadvertent actions of such actors. Individual people should be documented as instances of E21 Person, whereas groups should be documented as instances of either E74 Group or its subclass E40 Legal Body.
This class comprises signs, either meaningful or not, or arrangements of signs following a specific syntax, that are used or can be used to refer to and identify a specific instance of some class or category within a certain context. Instances of E41 Appellation do not identify things by their meaning, even if they happen to have one, but instead by convention, tradition, or agreement. Instances of E41 Appellation are cultural constructs; as such, they have a context, a history, and a use in time and space by some group of users. A given instance of E41 Appellation can have alternative forms, i.e., other instances of E41 Appellation that are always regarded as equivalent independent from the thing it denotes. Specific subclasses of E41 Appellation should be used when instances of E41 Appellation of a characteristic form are used for particular objects. Instances of E49 Time Appellation, for example, which take the form of instances of E50 Date, can be easily recognised. E41 Appellation should not be confused with the act of naming something. Cf. E15 Identifier Assignment
This class comprises strings or codes assigned to instances of E1 CRM Entity in order to identify them uniquely and permanently within the context of one or more organisations. Such codes are often known as inventory numbers, registration codes, etc. and are typically composed of alphanumeric sequences. The class E42 Identifier is not normally used for machine-generated identifiers used for automated processing unless these are also used by human agents.
This class comprises quantifiable properties that can be measured by some calibrated means and can be approximated by values, i.e. points or regions in a mathematical or conceptual space, such as natural or real numbers, RGB values etc. An instance of E54 Dimension represents the true quantity, independent from its numerical approximation, e.g. in inches or in cm. The properties of the class E54 Dimension allow for expressing the numerical approximation of the values of an instance of E54 Dimension. If the true values belong to a non-discrete space, such as spatial distances, it is recommended to record them as approximations by intervals or regions of indeterminacy enclosing the assumed true values. For instance, a length of 5 cm may be recorded as 4.5-5.5 cm, according to the precision of the respective observation. Note, that interoperability of values described in different units depends critically on the representation as value regions. Numerical approximations in archaic instances of E58 Measurement Unit used in historical records should be preserved. Equivalents corresponding to current knowledge should be recorded as additional instances of E54 Dimension as appropriate.
This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of CRM classes. Instances of E55 Type represent concepts in contrast to instances of E41 Appellation which are used to name instances of CRM classes. E55 Type is the CRM’s interface to domain specific ontologies and thesauri. These can be represented in the CRM as subclasses of E55 Type, forming hierarchies of terms, i.e. instances of E55 Type linked via P127 has broader term (has narrower term). Such hierarchies may be extended with additional properties.
This class is a specialization of E55 Type and comprises the types of measurement units: feet, inches, centimetres, litres, lumens, etc. This type is used categorically in the model without reference to instances of it, i.e. the Model does not foresee the description of instances of instances of E58 Measurement Unit, e.g.: “instances of cm”. Système International (SI) units or internationally recognized non-SI terms should be used whenever possible. (ISO 1000:1992). Archaic Measurement Units used in historical records should be preserved.
This general class comprises discrete, identifiable, instances of E77 Persistent Item that are documented as single units, that either consist of matter or depend on being carried by matter and are characterized by relative stability. They may be intellectual products or physical things. They may for instance have a solid physical form, an electronic encoding, or they may be a logical concept or structure.
This class comprises discrete, identifiable man-made items that are documented as single units. These items are either intellectual products or man-made physical things, and are characterized by relative stability. They may for instance have a solid physical form, an electronic encoding, or they may be logical concepts or structures.
This class comprises those material or immaterial items to which instances of E30 Right, such as the right of ownership or use, can be applied. This is true for all E18 Physical Thing. In the case of instances of E28 Conceptual Object, however, the identity of the E28 Conceptual Object or the method of its use may be too ambiguous to reliably establish instances of E30 Right, as in the case of taxa and inspirations. Ownership of corporations is currently regarded as out of scope of the CRM.
This class comprises identifiable immaterial items, such as a poems, jokes, data sets, images, texts, multimedia objects, procedural prescriptions, computer program code, algorithm or mathematical formulae, that have an objectively recognizable structure and are documented as single units. The encoding structure known as a "named graph" also falls under this class, so that each "named graph" is an instance of an E73 Information Object.An E73 Information Object does not depend on a specific physical carrier, which can include human memory, and it can exist on one or more carriers simultaneously. Instances of E73 Information Object of a linguistic nature should be declared as instances of the E33 Linguistic Object subclass. Instances of E73 Information Object of a documentary nature should be declared as instances of the E31 Document subclass. Conceptual items such as types and classes are not instances of E73 Information Object, nor are ideas without a reproducible expression.
This class comprises items that have a persistent identity, sometimes known as “endurants” in philosophy. They can be repeatedly recognized within the duration of their existence by identity criteria rather than by continuity or observation. Persistent Items can be either physical entities, such as people, animals or things, or conceptual entities such as ideas, concepts, products of the imagination or common names. The criteria that determine the identity of an item are often difficult to establish -; the decision depends largely on the judgement of the observer. For example, a building is regarded as no longer existing if it is dismantled and the materials reused in a different configuration. On the other hand, human beings go through radical and profound changes during their life-span, affecting both material composition and form, yet preserve their identity by other criteria. Similarly, inanimate objects may be subject to exchange of parts and matter. The class E77 Persistent Item does not take any position about the nature of the applicable identity criteria and if actual knowledge about identity of an instance of this class exists. There may be cases, where the identity of an E77 Persistent Item is not decidable by a certain state of knowledge.The main classes of objects that fall outside the scope the E77 Persistent Item class are temporal objects such as periods, events and acts, and descriptive properties.
This class comprises all instances of E22 Man-Made Object that are explicitly designed to act as persistent physical carriers for instances of E73 Information Object. An E84 Information Carrier may or may not contain information, e.g., a diskette. Note that any E18 Physical Thing may carry information, such as an E34 Inscription. However, unless it was specifically designed for this purpose, it is not an Information Carrier. Therefore the property P128 carries (is carried by) applies to E18 Physical Thing in general.
This class comprises immaterial items, including but not limited to stories, plots, procedural prescriptions, algorithms, laws of physics or images that are, or represent in some sense, sets of propositions about real or imaginary things and that are documented as single units or serve as topics of discourse. This class also comprises items that are “about” something in the sense of a subject. In the wider sense, this class includes expressions of psychological value such as non-figural art and musical themes. However, conceptual items such as types and classes are not instances of E89 Propositional Object. This should not be confused with the definition of a type, which is indeed an instance of E89 Propositional Object.
This class comprises identifiable symbols and any aggregation of symbols, such as characters, identifiers, traffic signs, emblems, texts, data sets, images, musical scores, multimedia objects, computer program code or mathematical formulae that have an objectively recognizable structure and that are documented as single units. It includes sets of signs of any nature, which may serve to designate something, or to communicate some propositional content. An instance of E90 Symbolic Object does not depend on a specific physical carrier, which can include human memory, and it can exist on one or more carriers simultaneously. An instance of E90 Symbolic Object may or may not have a specific meaning, for example an arbitrary character string. In some cases, the content of an instance of E90 Symbolic Object may completely be represented by a serialized digital content model, such as a sequence of ASCII-encoded characters, an XML or HTML document, or a TIFF image. The property P3 has note allows for the description of this content model. In order to disambiguate which symbolic level is the carrier of the meaning, the property P3.1 has type can be used to specify the encoding (e.g. "bit", "Latin character", RGB pixel).
This class comprises 4 dimensional point sets (volumes) in physical spacetime regardless its true geometric form. They may derive their identity from being the extent of a material phenomenon or from being the interpretation of an expression defining an extent in spacetime. Intersections of instances of E92 Spacetime Volume, Place and Timespan are also regarded as instances of E92 Spacetime Volume. An instance of E92 Spacetime Volume is either contiguous or composed of a finite number of contiguous subsets. Its boundaries may be fuzzy due to the properties of the phenomena it derives from or due to the limited precision up to which defining expression can be identified with a real extent in spacetime. The duration of existence of an instance of a spacetime volume is trivially its projection on time.
This class comprises distinct concepts or combinations of concepts identified in artistic and intellectual expressions, such as poems, stories or musical compositions. Such concepts may appear in the course of the coherent evolution of an original idea into one or more expressions that are dominated by the original idea. A Work may be elaborated by one or more Actors simultaneously or over time. The substance of Work is ideas. A Work may have members that are works in their own right. A Work can be either individual or complex. If it is individual its concept is completely realised in a single F22 Self-Contained Expression. If it is complex its concept is embedded in an F15 Complex Work. An F15 Complex Work consists of alternative members that are either F15 Complex Works themselves or F14 Individual Works. A Work is the product of an intellectual process of one or more persons, yet only indirect evidence about it is at our hands. This can be contextual information such as the existence of an order for a work, reflections of the creators themselves that are documented somewhere, and finally the expressions of the work created. As ideas normally take shape during discussion, elaboration and implementation, it is not reasonable to assume that a work starts with a complete concept. In some cases, it can be very difficult or impossible to define the whole of the concept of a work at a particular time. The objective evidence for such a notion can only be based on a stage of expressions at a given time. In this sense, the sets of ideas that constitute particular self-contained expressions may be regarded as a kind of “snap-shot” of a work. A Work may include the concept of aggregating expressions of other works into a new expression. For instance, an anthology of poems is regarded as a work in its own right that makes use of expressions of the individual poems that have been selected and ordered as part of an intellectual process. This does not make the contents of the aggregated expressions part of this work, but only parts of the resulting expression.
This class comprises the intellectual or artistic realisations of works in the form of identifiable immaterial objects, such as texts, poems, jokes, musical or choreographic notations, movement pattern, sound pattern, images, multimedia objects, or any combination of such forms that have objectively recognisable structures. The substance of F2 Expression is signs. Expressions cannot exist without a physical carrier, but do not depend on a specific physical carrier and can exist on one or more carriers simultaneously. Carriers may include human memory. Inasmuch as the form of F2 Expression is an inherent characteristic of the F2 Expression, any change in form (e.g., from alpha-numeric notation to spoken word, a poem created in capitals and rendered in lower case) is a new F2 Expression. Similarly, changes in the intellectual conventions or instruments that are employed to express a work (e.g., translation from one language to another) result in the creation of a new F2 Expression. Thus, if a text is revised or modified, the resulting F2 Expression is considered to be a new F2 Expression. Minor changes, such as corrections of spelling and punctuation, etc., are normally considered variations within the same F2 Expression. On a practical level, the degree to which distinctions are made between variant expressions of a work will depend to some extent on the nature of the F1 Work itself, and on the anticipated needs of users. The genre of the work may provide an indication of which features are essential to the expression. In some cases, aspects of physical form, such as typeface and page layout, are not integral to the intellectual or artistic realisation of the work as such, and therefore are not distinctive criteria for the respective expressions. For another work, features such as layout may be essential. For instance, the author or a graphic designer may wrap a poem around an image. An expression of a work may include expressions of other works within it. For instance, an anthology of poems is regarded as a work in its own right that makes use of expressions of the individual poems that have been selected and ordered as part of an intellectual process. This does not make the contents of the aggregated expressions part of this work, but only parts of the resulting expression. If an instance of F2 Expression is of a specific form, such as text, image, etc., it may be simultaneously instantiated in the specific classes representing these forms in CIDOC CRM. Thereby one can make use of the more specific properties of these classes, such as language (which is applicable to instances of E33 Linguistic Object only).
This class comprises the definitions of publication products. An instance of F3 Manifestation Product Type is the “species”, and all copies of a given object are “specimens” of it. An instance of F3 Manifestation Product Type defines all of the features or traits that instances of F5 Item normally display in order that they may be recognised as copies of a particular publication. However, due to production problems or subsequent events, one or more instances of F5 Item may not exhibit all these features or traits; yet such instances still retain their relationship to the same instance of F3 Manifestation Product Type. The features that characterise a given instance of F3 Manifestation Product Type include: one instance of F24 Publication Expression, containing one or more than one instance of F2 Expression, reflecting the authors’ content of the manifestation and all additional input by the publisher; and the appropriate types of physical features for that form of the object. For example, hardcover and paperback are two distinct publications (i.e. two distinct instances of F3 Manifestation Product Type) even though authorial and editorial content are otherwise identical in both publications. The activity of cataloguing aims at the most accurate listing of features or traits of an instance of F3 Manifestation Product Type that are sufficient to distinguish it from another instance of F3 Manifestation Product Type.
This class comprises physical objects that each carry an instance of F2 Expression, and that were produced as unique objects, with no siblings intended in the course of their production. It should be noted that if all but one copy of a given publication are destroyed, then that copy does not become an instance of F4 Manifestation Singleton, because it was produced together with sibling copies, even though it now happens to be unique. Examples of instances of F4 Manifestation Singleton include manuscripts, preparatory sketches and the final clean draft sent by an author or a composer to a publisher.
This class comprises physical objects (printed books, scores, CDs, DVDs, CD-ROMS, etc.) that carry a F24 Publication Expression and were produced by an industrial process involving an F3 Manifestation Product Type.
This class comprises works that have other works as members. The members of a Complex Work may constitute alternatives to, derivatives of, or self-contained components of other members of the same Complex Work. In practice, no clear line can be drawn between parallel and subsequent processes in the evolution of a work. One part may not be finished when another is already revised. An initially monolithic work may be taken up and evolve in pieces. The member relationship of Work is based on the conceptual relationship, and should not be confused with the internal structural parts of an individual expression. The fact that an expression may contain parts from other work(s) does not make the expressed work complex. For instance, an anthology for which only one version exists is not a complex work. The boundaries of a Complex Work have nothing to do with the value of the intellectual achievement but only with the dominance of a concept. Thus, derivations such as translations are regarded as belonging to the same Complex Work, even though in addition they constitute an Individual Work themselves. In contrast, a Work that significantly takes up and merges concepts of other works so that it is no longer dominated by the initial concept is regarded as a new work. In cataloguing practice, detailed rules are established prescribing which kinds of derivation should be regarded as crossing the boundaries of a complex work. Adaptation and derivation graphs allow the recognition of distinct sub-units, i.e. a complex work contained in a larger complex work. As a Complex Work can be taken up by any creator who acquires the spirit of its concept, it is never finished in an absolute sense.
This class 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, such as layout to words, recitation and movement to texts, performance to musical scores etc. This does not make the contents of the incorporated expressions part of the Container Work, but only part of the resulting expression. Container Work may include the addition of new, original parts to the incorporated expressions, such as introductions, graphics, etc. This class is an “abstract class,” in that it only serves as an umbrella for its three subclasses. As a consequence, it can only be instantiated by instances of any of its subclasses: nothing can be an instance of it, unless it is an instance of either F17 Aggregation Work, F19 Publication Work, or F20 Performance Work. A new version of a container work does not make the resulting complex work a Container Work as well. The inclusion of expressions from a complex work in a Container Work does not make the Container Work itself complex.
This class comprises works that are, or have been, planned to result in sequences of Expressions or Manifestations with common features. Whereas a work can acquire new members during the time it evolves, Expressions and Manifestations are identified with a certain state achieved at a particular point in time. Therefore there is in general no single Expression or Manifestation representing a complete serial work, unless the serial work has ended. Serial Works may or may not have a plan for an overall expression. The retrospective reprinting of all issues of a Serial Work at once, in the form of a monograph, is regarded to be another member of a Complex Work, which contains the Serial Work and the Individual Work realised in the monograph. This does not make the monograph part of the Serial Work.
This class comprises works that have been planned to result in a manifestation product type or an electronic publishing service and that pertain to the rendering of expressions from other works
This class comprises activities that follow the directions of a performance plan, such as a theatrical play, an expression of a choreographic work or a musical work; i.e., they are intended to communicate directly or indirectly to an audience. Such activities can be identified at various levels of granularity, and can be contiguous or not. Any individual performance (with or without intermissions) is a single instance of F31 Performance. In addition, a complete run of performances can also be seen as an instance of F31 Performance, with individual performances as parts. A complete run of performances may comprise an original run plus any of its extensions and tours. Note that a performance plan may be more or less elaborate, and may even foresee just improvisation.
This class comprises physical objects that carry one or more instances of F24 Publication Expression.
This class comprises the activity of gaining scientific knowledge about particular states of physical reality gained by empirical evidence, experiments and by measurements. We define observation in the sense of natural sciences, as a kind of human activity: at some Place and within some Time-Span, certain Physical Things and their behavior and interactions are observed, either directly by human sensory impression, or enhanced with tools and measurement devices. The output of the internal processes of measurement devices that do not require additional human interaction are in general regarded as part of the observation and not as additional inference. Manual recordings may serve as additional evidence. Measurements and witnessing of events are special cases of observations. Observations result in a belief about certain propositions. In this model, the degree of confidence in the observed properties is regarded to be “true” per default, but could be described differently by adding a property P3 has note to an instance of S4 Observation, or by reification of the property O16 observed value. Primary data from measurement devices are regarded in this model to be results of observation and can be interpreted as propositions believed to be true within the (known) tolerances and degree of reliability of the device. Observations represent the transition between reality and propositions in the form of instances of a formal ontology, and can be subject to data evaluation from this point on.
This class comprises constellations of matter with a relative stability of any form sufficient to associate them with a persistent identity, such as being confined to certain extent, having a relative stability of form or structure, or containing a fixed amount of matter. In particular, it comprises physical things in the narrower sense and fluid bodies. It is an abstraction of physical substance for solid and non-solid things of matter.
This class comprises instances of E2 Temporal Entity or E77 Persistent Item, i.e. items or phenomena that can be observed, either directly by human sensory impression, or enhanced with tools and measurement devices, such as physical things, their behavior, states and interactions or events. Conceptual objects can be present in events by their carriers such as books, digital media, or even human memory. By virtue of this presence, properties of conceptual objects, such as number of words can be observed on their carriers. If the respective properties between carriers differ, either they carry different instances of conceptual objects or the difference can be attributed to accidental deficiencies in one of the carriers. In that sense even immaterial objects are observable. By this model we give credit to the fact that frequently, the actually observed carriers of conceptual objects are not explicitly identified in documentation, i.e., the actual carrier is assumed having existed but is unknown as an individual.
This property describes the naming or identification of any real world item by a name or any other identifier. This property is intended for identifiers in general use, which form part of the world the model intends to describe, and not merely for internal database identifiers which are specific to a technical system, unless these latter also have a more general use outside the technical context. This property includes in particular identification by mathematical expressions such as coordinate systems used for the identification of instances of E53 Place. The property does not reveal anything about when, where and by whom this identifier was used. A more detailed representation can be made using the fully developed (i.e. indirect) path through E15 Identifier Assignment.
Associates a physical human-made thing with a type which expresses its essential classification.
This property allows sub typing of CRM entities - a form of specialisation – through the use of a terminological hierarchy, or thesaurus. The CRM is intended to focus on the high-level entities and relationships needed to describe data structures. Consequently, it does not specialise entities any further than is required for this immediate purpose. However, entities in the isA hierarchy of the CRM may by specialised into any number of sub entities, which can be defined in the E55 Type hierarchy. E51 Contact Point, for example, may be specialised into “e-mail address”, “telephone number”, “post office box”, “URL” etc. none of which figures explicitly in the CRM hierarchy. Sub typing obviously requires consistency between the meaning of the terms assigned and the more general intent of the CRM entity in question.
Associates an Item (F5) with the type which defines its identity
Associates a digital object with the type which defines its identity
Associates an expression with the type which defines its identity
Associates a manifestation product type with the type which defines its identity
Associates a manifestation singleton with the type which defines its identity
This property associates an activity with the type which defines its identity.
Associates a duration with its time unit
Associates a numeric dimension with its type (by analogy with the unit of measurement for distinguishing quantities having none).
Associates a lenght with its measurement unit
Associates a weight with its measurement unit
Associates an area with its measurement unit
Associates a volume with its measurement unit
This property associates a monetary amount with its currency and is equivalent to crm:P180 has currency as defined in CIDOC CRM version 6.2.9.
This property models components of physical objects that are not identified as individuals but just as types. It extends the crm:P46 is composed of property to more general situation where the identification of each part of a physical thing is not identified as such.
Associates the string defining the identity of the identifier
This property associates an entity, identified in the domain information system, with a persistent identifier provided for the same resource (be this physical or conceptual) in an external namespace i.e. in a different information system in which the entity receives an identifier (range of the property). The nature of the external identifier (database primary key, authority file number, etc.) will be provided using specific types. In case of URIs, in the sense of the Semantic Web, the subproperty crm-sup:P28 same as URI [owl:sameAs] is to be preferred.
Associates a dimension with a type which expresses its essential classification.
This property associates a performance with the type which defines its identity
This property is equivalent to the owl:sameAs property: it associates an entity in an information system with the URI that the same entity or resource has in another namespace (e.g. VIAF, IdRef, DBPedia, Wikidata) , in the context of the Semantic Web.
Associates a move with the type which defines its identity
This property associates an instance of S4 Observation with the instancean Observed Entity Type, i.e. a type classifying the value assigned to an entity observed by S4 Observation.
This property allows sub typing of frbroo:F18 Serial Work instances - a form of specialisation – through the use of a terminological hierarchy, or thesaurus.
Associates a propositional object with a type which expresses its essential classification.
This property associates a person with the type which defines its identity.
Associates an event (crm:E5) with the type which defines its identity
This property shows the type of unit an E54 Dimension was expressed in.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. This property describes the naming or identification of any real world item by a name or any other identifier. This property is intended for identifiers in general use, which form part of the world the model intends to describe, and not merely for internal database identifiers which are specific to a technical system, unless these latter also have a more general use outside the technical context. This property includes in particular identification by mathematical expressions such as coordinate systems used for the identification of instances of E53 Place. The property does not reveal anything about when, where and by whom this identifier was used. A more detailed representation can be made using the fully developed (i.e. indirect) path through E15 Identifier Assignment.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates a physical human-made thing with a type which expresses its essential classification.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. This property allows sub typing of CRM entities - a form of specialisation – through the use of a terminological hierarchy, or thesaurus. The CRM is intended to focus on the high-level entities and relationships needed to describe data structures. Consequently, it does not specialise entities any further than is required for this immediate purpose. However, entities in the isA hierarchy of the CRM may by specialised into any number of sub entities, which can be defined in the E55 Type hierarchy. E51 Contact Point, for example, may be specialised into “e-mail address”, “telephone number”, “post office box”, “URL” etc. none of which figures explicitly in the CRM hierarchy. Sub typing obviously requires consistency between the meaning of the terms assigned and the more general intent of the CRM entity in question.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates an Item (F5) with the type which defines its identity
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates a digital object with the type which defines its identity
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates an expression with the type which defines its identity
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates a manifestation product type with the type which defines its identity
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates a manifestation singleton with the type which defines its identity
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. This property associates an activity with the type which defines its identity.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates a duration with its time unit
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates a numeric dimension with its type (by analogy with the unit of measurement for distinguishing quantities having none).
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates a lenght with its measurement unit
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates a weight with its measurement unit
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates an area with its measurement unit
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates a volume with its measurement unit
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. This property associates a monetary amount with its currency and is equivalent to crm:P180 has currency as defined in CIDOC CRM version 6.2.9.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. This property models components of physical objects that are not identified as individuals but just as types. It extends the crm:P46 is composed of property to more general situation where the identification of each part of a physical thing is not identified as such.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates the string defining the identity of the identifier
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. This property associates an entity, identified in the domain information system, with a persistent identifier provided for the same resource (be this physical or conceptual) in an external namespace i.e. in a different information system in which the entity receives an identifier (range of the property). The nature of the external identifier (database primary key, authority file number, etc.) will be provided using specific types. In case of URIs, in the sense of the Semantic Web, the subproperty crm-sup:P28 same as URI [owl:sameAs] is to be preferred.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates a dimension with a type which expresses its essential classification.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. This property associates a performance with the type which defines its identity
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. This property is equivalent to the owl:sameAs property: it associates an entity in an information system with the URI that the same entity or resource has in another namespace (e.g. VIAF, IdRef, DBPedia, Wikidata) , in the context of the Semantic Web.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates a move with the type which defines its identity
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. This property associates an instance of S4 Observation with the instancean Observed Entity Type, i.e. a type classifying the value assigned to an entity observed by S4 Observation.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. This property allows sub typing of frbroo:F18 Serial Work instances - a form of specialisation – through the use of a terminological hierarchy, or thesaurus.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates a propositional object with a type which expresses its essential classification.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. This property associates a person with the type which defines its identity.
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. Associates an event (crm:E5) with the type which defines its identity
This property is the inverse of the forward property described in the scope note that follows. This property shows the type of unit an E54 Dimension was expressed in.