MUMIMOn

MUMIMOn, the Multi-User Multimedia Information Management Ontology Network, is an open standard for modeling, exchanging, and managing metadata and relationships for multimedia assets across distributed information systems. It seeks interoperable asset descriptions, provenance tracking, and cross-repository search in museums, libraries, and educational platforms.

Originating from a consortium of cultural-heritage institutions, universities, and industry partners, MUMIMOn emerged to harmonize varied metadata schemas. The first public draft appeared in 2018; a revised specification followed in 2020, with ongoing governance by the MUMIMOn Foundation.

The core components are an ontology, a data model, and an API. The ontology defines classes such as Asset, Version, Exhibit, Person, and Location, with provenance and rights properties. Serializations rely on RDF or JSON-LD, and the API supports create, update, and cross-repository search.

Adoption includes several museums and libraries implementing federated search and rights management. Benefits cited: interoperable metadata, reusable asset descriptions, and stronger provenance. Governance is open, with a technical committee, public issue tracker, and regular community meetings.

Critics note complexity and resource needs for small institutions. Proponents argue that long-term data integration justifies the effort. Ongoing work focuses on simplification layers and improved mappings from legacy schemas.