1) Brief history / background to the model

Over the past few years, the ICOM/CIDOC document standards group has been developing an object oriented Conceptual Reference Model. The model represents an 'ontology' for cultural heritage information, i.e., it describes in a formal language the explicit and implicit concepts relations relevant to the documentation of cultural heritage. The primary role of the CRM is to serve as a basis for mediation of cultural information and thereby provides the semantic 'glue' needed to today's disparate, localized information sources into a coherent valuable global resource. The model provides mechanisms for dealing a number of complex issues in a coherent manner: varying levels of and precision, transfer of information between 'richer' and'pooer'systems and extensions to incorporate domain specific information. This explains how the model can be used as a reference in the cultural sector. is intended both to represent good practice in the representation information and to be used as a practical aid in the design implementation of mediation servers, search engines, databases, DTD's Z39.50 access profiles, Metadata, documentation guidelines, and products. using the CRM ensures semantic compatibility between systems and services and removes the need for one to one conversions different native formats. The paper should be of interest to curators other domain specialists, as well as system designers and implementors working in the cultural domain.