itemsmost

Itemsmost is an open, community-driven data standard for describing and exchanging information about items, including physical objects, digital assets, and collections. It provides a compact core model with extensible metadata to support interoperability across catalogs, marketplaces, museums, libraries, and asset-management systems. The goal is to enable precise item descriptions, reliable linking between related objects, and scalable publishing of catalogs.

The core model centers on a persistent identifier, essential fields such as name, description, category, and date of creation, and optional attributes like provenance, measurements, rights, and localization. Itemsmost supports relationships between items (is-part-of, related-item) and versioning to track changes over time. Serializations include JSON-LD, RDF, and YAML, facilitating reuse with external vocabularies such as schema.org and CIDOC CRM, and allowing mapping to existing metadata schemas.

Origin and governance: The concept emerged in 2023 as a community-driven effort among libraries, museums, and universities to address interoperability gaps in item catalogs. The specification and reference implementations are maintained by an open consortium and released under permissive licenses to encourage adoption, extension, and interinstitutional sharing.

Usage and ecosystem: While fictional, itemsmost is designed to illustrate catalog design and data interoperability. Real-world deployments in example projects demonstrate cross-institution publishing, data quality checks, and integration with existing standards. The ecosystem emphasizes compatibility with established metadata schemes rather than replacement.

Reception and limitations: Advocates praise its modularity and openness, while critics note potential fragmentation from extensions and a learning curve for large catalogs. Ongoing governance aims to balance flexibility with a stable core to ensure long-term interoperability.