Records in Contexts, made navigable.
A plain-language way into the RiC model - and into a real archival collection described with it. See how a record connects to the people who made it, the activities it documents, and the places and dates around it. No RDF, no code.
Start with the wizard
The modelling wizard
The easiest way in: a guided, step-by-step wizard that poses a real cataloguing decision, explains why each RiC entity fits or doesn't, and builds the model as you go. First scenario - a magnetic tape with mixed-provenance tracks.
Explore the model
The RiC-CM model navigator
Walk the Records in Contexts conceptual model one entity at a time. Each entity (Record, Agent, Activity, Place…) lists its attributes and relations in plain terms - and clearly separates what an entity declares itself from what it inherits from a parent. Every page has a stable, citable address tied to a model version, so a link you share today still works tomorrow.
Declared vs inherited. In RiC, a specific entity like Person is a kind of Agent, so it carries everything an Agent does plus its own additions. The navigator shows these separately - what's declared on the entity itself, and what's inherited - so it's always clear where an attribute or relation comes from. The approach follows the spirit of the RiC-CM Nav tool from the Ionian University, which we gratefully acknowledge.
What is Records in Contexts?
For most of archival history, descriptive standards treated records, the people behind them, the functions they served, and the institutions that held them as separate documents. Records in Contexts (RiC) - the International Council on Archives' next-generation model - treats them instead as one connected web: entities joined by relationships.
Instead of describing a fonds in isolation, you describe the record and who created it and the activity that produced it and where and when - and the links between them all. That connected picture is what lets you ask questions a flat catalogue can't answer: everything this person touched, every record produced by this activity, how these two collections relate.
The model is built from a small set of entity types. These are the building blocks you'll meet in the navigator:
See it in real data
The model is one thing; a real collection described with it is another. These let you see RiC applied to actual archival material - click through and follow the connections yourself.
Graph viewer live
A real archival dataset as an interactive map. Click any record, person or activity to expand its connections. No install, no signup.
Browse the catalogue live
A familiar catalogue view - cards, filters by type, pagination - over the same live data. Click any item through to the graph.
Model navigator live
The conceptual model itself - entities, attributes and relations, declared-vs-inherited, versioned and citable.
The four standards, unified
If you've worked with the ICA's earlier standards, RiC brings them into a single connected model. Nothing is thrown away - the concepts you know map across:
| You knew it as | For describing | In RiC it becomes |
|---|---|---|
| ISAD(G) | Archival materials (fonds → item) | Record and Record Set entities |
| ISAAR(CPF) | Creators - people, families, organisations | Agent entities and their relations |
| ISDF | Functions and activities | Activity and Function entities |
| ISDIAH | Holding institutions | Agent (corporate body) + custody relations |
Because the relationships between these are explicit and machine-readable, a record described in RiC can be searched, linked, and exchanged across institutions in ways the separate standards never allowed.
Going deeper
Questions, or want a walkthrough for your team? johan@theahg.co.za - happy to present OpenRiC to archival institutions and working groups.