MIDAS Heritage ''– the UK Historic Environment Data Standard'' is a British

cultural heritage Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soci ...

standard for recording information on buildings, archaeological sites, shipwrecks, parks and gardens, battlefields, areas of interest and artefacts. The data standard suggests the minimum level of information needed for recording heritage assets and covers the procedures involved in understanding, protecting and managing these assets. It also provides guidelines on how to support effective sharing of knowledge,

data retrieval Data retrieval means obtaining data from a Database Management System (DBMS) such as ODBMS. In this case, it is considered that data is represented in a structured way, and there is no ambiguity in data. In order to retrieve the desired data ...

and long-term preservation of data. ''MIDAS Heritage'' is freely available to anyone interested in recording historic environment information. It is used by national government organisations, local authorities, heritage sector organisations, amenity groups and societies, the research community and professional contractors.

History

The first edition of the standard, ''MIDAS – A Manual and Data Standard for Monument Inventories'', was published by the ''

Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England The Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) was a government advisory body responsible for documenting buildings and monuments of archaeological, architectural and historical importance in England. It was established in 19 ...

'' (RCHME) in 1998. The organisation merged with ''

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

'' in 1999 and the updated version, ''MIDAS Heritage'', was published in 2007 in collaboration with other UK heritage organisations. The standard was developed by the ''Forum on Information Standards in Heritage'' (FISH), a discussion forum aimed at helping to resolve standards and recording issues for the whole of the heritage sector. A revised version, with more explicit compliance statements, was released in 2012. Following the separation between English Heritage (managing guardianship sites) and

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...

as the strategic historic environment body for England in 2015, responsibility for MIDAS transferred to Historic England.

Coverage

''MIDAS Heritage'' is a set of closely integrated data standards, rather than one single standard. It is designed to be used in conjunction with separate standards covering specific types of applications or projects, which will give the necessary

data element In metadata, the term data element is an atomic unit of data that has precise meaning or precise semantics. A data element has: # An identification such as a data element name # A clear data element definition # One or more representation terms # ...

s. Examples include ''SPECTRUM'' (artefacts), ''UK Gemini Discovery Metadata Standard'' (GIS), ''

CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) provides an extensible ontology for concepts and information in cultural heritage and museum documentation. It is the international standard (ISO 21127:2014) for the controlled exchange of cultural her ...

'' (concepts and relationships), and ''Informing the Future of the Past: Guidelines for Historic Environment Records’’. MIDAS Heritage complies with the UK e-Government Metadata Standard (

e-GMS The e-Government Metadata Standard, e-GMS, is the UK e-Government Metadata Standard. It defines how UK public sector bodies should label content such as web pages and documents to make such information more easily managed, found and shared. Th ...

), which is based on

Dublin Core 220px, Logo image of DCMI, which formulates Dublin Core The Dublin Core, also known as the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES), is a set of fifteen "core" elements (properties) for describing resources. This fifteen-element Dublin Core has ...

. There are six main themes, each containing several Information Groups, which in turn contain a number of Information Units. The standard aims only to provide a common information framework and does not cover: what software or file format to use; what to call fields and tables in a database and how they are designed; what indexing terms to use; how to record archives and museum collections, or how to redesign an existing information system.English Heritage (2007): MIDAS Heritage – The UK Historic Environment Data Standard. (What is not included in MIDAS Heritage) http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/midas-heritage/midasheritagepartone.pdf

References

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External links

• MIDAS Heritage - free download: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/midas-heritage/midas-heritage-2012-v1_1/ • English Heritage https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/ • Forum on Information Standards in Heritage (FISH) http://www.heritage-standards.org.uk/ Cultural heritage Conservation and restoration organizations