Photograph of the upper portion of a tall concrete radio tower with a circular viewing platform at the top.
St John's Beacon (Radio City Tower), Houghton Street, Liverpool, Merseyside. © Historic England Archive. Photographer credit James O Davies. Image reference DP275620
St John's Beacon (Radio City Tower), Houghton Street, Liverpool, Merseyside. © Historic England Archive. Photographer credit James O Davies. Image reference DP275620

Heritage Reference Data Management System

Data standards underpin the effective gathering, dissemination and exchange of information by ensuring consistency and accuracy in data indexing and retrieval.

HIAS Principle 3 states: "Historic England, together with its partners, should continue to champion the development, maintenance and implementation of standards for the creation, management, sharing, re-use and storage of digital historic environment data."

In order to achieve this, Historic England are working in partnership with the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) 

The Arches Lingo Project will deliver a standalone application based around the software platform developed by the Arches Project team. This will facilitate the dissemination of heritage reference data, essential to effective information management and interoperability, across the historic environment.

And it is thanks to the support of the GCI that the vision of a ‘one-stop shop’ for the collaborative creation, management and digital publication of reference data will finally be realised.

The new application will be underpinned by international standards for heritage data and vocabulary creation and dissemination including:

  • In the UK it will replace the functionality currently made available via the Heritage Data and Heritage-Standards websites and a variety of tools, including the Historic England Reference Data Manager.
  •  It will support the development of networks and services that enable users to undertake comprehensive searches of the information holdings of Historic England and its partners.
  • It will promote standards and best practice to enable interoperability with key partners and to encourage the interaction of the emerging historic environment information network with other thematic networks.
  • It will deliver a knowledge organisation structure, which not only facilitates data exchange and cross-searching of multiple datasets but also provides a valuable information resource allowing users to discover more about the historic environment.

Also of interest

Data Standards and Terminology