Use of existing microformats
Existing microformats suitable for use by museums:
- hAudio for audio files
- hCard for venues, people and organisations (only does Gregorian birth dates in the range 1583-9999 CE)
- hCalendar for events (forthcoming and historic; but only does Gregorian dates in the range 1583-9999 CE)
- 'Species' for vernacular and scientific names of living things
- hListing & hProduct for museum shops
Prior discussion
Proposed microformats and other inconclusive discussion:
Microformat for Objects
If there is to be a microformat for (museum) objects, what would we want from it?
- Interoperabiity with LIDO, Dublin Core, etc
- A singular version of hProduct microformat (e.g. use hProduct for selling an iPad; the new uF for a speciific iPad in a museum
- Consideration of the issue of vague ("c. 1503–1506") and non-Gregorian dates (see Extended Date Time Format efforts based at the USA’s Library of Congress)
- ...
A starter for 10...
An object microformat is only likely to be useful to museums and their audiences if it includes, as a minimum, there properties
- Object name (use "fn" from hProduct - REQUIRED)
- Category (painting, sculpture, garment etc; pre-Raphaelite, Egyptian, etc; storage, display, restoration etc; may be plural; could use rel-tag; from hProduct)
- Description (text; from hProduct)
- Photo (URL of; could be plural; from hProduct)
- URL (must be singular; from hProduct)
- Identifier (type & value; from hProduct)
- Creation date
- Maker (aka artist; may be plural; use hCard)
- Place of origin (use hCard)
- (current) Location (use hCard)
- Owner (use hCard)
- Custodian (use hCard)