OMARO

OMARO provides a reference for organological terminology and classification. Its public browser supports searching and inspecting the vocabulary across languages. The first published release described here is 0.1.0.

A reference is not a source quotation#

A controlled concept helps relate records. The original wording in a source remains evidence in its own right. Mapping that wording to a reference concept is an interpretative step and should stay attributable.

OMARO and POD have independent versions. A dataset release can refer to a vocabulary without turning that vocabulary into part of the dataset’s own release identity.

More than a multilingual label list#

OMARO expands to Ontology for Multiperspectivity, Assertions, and Review in Organology. It records statements together with their source, applicability and review status. The reference dataset provides a concrete foundation for lookup and comparison, while the model allows an interpretation to be documented without assuming that every perspective must collapse into one universal classification.

An example of careful vocabulary reuse#

Suppose an inventory contains a historical instrument name. Start by preserving the literal wording and its language or uncertainty. Look up candidate reference concepts, inspect their identifiers and source context, then record the grounds for a mapping. A modern preferred label can make discovery easier without replacing the historical expression in the evidence.

The reference corpus and an expert assessment are different resources. A source-derived classification expresses what the source assigns; it does not itself establish a new scholarly review of the object. A reusable mapping should therefore retain its status, scope and source instead of presenting every imported classification as a freshly endorsed conclusion.

Keep releases independent#

OMARO’s ontology, reference data and tooling have separately meaningful version identities even when their published labels coincide. A POD release or Navigator snapshot may use a particular OMARO state. Cite the reference actually used and keep the original source identifier where supplied; do not infer a new dataset version simply from a changed vocabulary interface.