Unique and persistent identification in the field of written cultural heritage

Unique and persistent identification of a digital copy of a document requires unique and persistent identification of the original physical document. A document can be uniquely and persistently identified based on a combination of the following data:

• Identification of the place of physical location of the document, i.e.
• (Country)
• Municipality or city in which the document is physically located
• Institution holding the document
• Repository in which the document is physically located
• (Collection to which the document belongs)
• Identification of the document within the place of physical location
• Shelf-mark, identifying the exact and unique location of the document in a collection, repository or institution

Persistence in time is assured by a time stamp showing the time of registration of the document in the IdH. The digital copy identifier is the identifier of the physical document accompanied with the order number of the digital copy. The order number reflects the order in which the document was registered in the IdH system.

Link to information concerning location of a document is carried out by another part of the system called Digital Concordance.

An example

Manuscript of the breviary Liber viaticus, created in 1350´s (by 1364 at the latest) for the Czech bishop John of Neumarkt, is currently deposited in the National Museum Library in Prague under the shelf mark XIII.a.12. Colleagues from the National Museum had the document digitized and registered in the IdH system.

Following data were used to create the persistent identifier of the document:

• Identification of the place of physical location of the document:
• Country: Czech Republic
• Municipality or city: Prague
• Institution: National Museum Library
• Repository: National Museum Library
• Collection: (left unfilled)
• Identification of the document within the place of physical location
• Shelf-mark: XIII.a.12

Based on the data, the system generated:

• unique physical document identifier: NMP___XIII_A_12___0CMKQR5
• digital copy identifier: NMP___XIII_A_12___0CMKQR5#AIPDIG001
• persistent link made accessible by the IdH:
  http://resolver.manuscriptorium.com/NMP___XIII_A_12___0CMKQR5%23AIPDIG001

Find out more

about Written Heritage Digital Concordance

Find out more

about Registry of Written Heritage Repositories