The following question(s) were asked in the Collection Management Systems Webinar and will be answered here.
Wouter Addink: Would both Digital Specimen and Multimedia Objects be mapped to Digital Entity?
Response:
Media in digital form would definitely be represented in DigitalEntities. Physical media (e.g., photographic prints) would be MaterialEntities.
As we understand it, a Digital Specimen is the information about a cataloged physical object, that is, about a MaterialEntity. If the intended purpose of the Digital Specimen requires an identifier distinct from the identifier for the MaterialEntity for which it is a proxy, then it is a good candidate for a DigitalEntity, with an EntityRelationship to the MaterialEntity it represents. It’s not clear what the Digital Specimen provides that the data about the MaterialEntity does not, except to be another identifier for a domain in which additional information about the MaterialEntity can be accumulated. But then why not use an identifier for the MaterialEntity to begin with? I am exposing my ignorance here, but I am keen to understand this fundamental issue. It seems of immense value to have a proper use case for Digital Specimens to explore any aspects of that concept that are perceived to not be possible to cover with the Unified Model.