Related Implementations and Reference Projects

OpenRiC is one of several initiatives building practical, RiC-aligned archival linked-data infrastructure. This page lists external projects that OpenRiC tracks as implementation references, interoperability benchmarks, or external authority targets.

These projects are independent from OpenRiC. They are listed here because they demonstrate patterns OpenRiC adopts or learns from — not because OpenRiC has any formal partnership, endorsement, or dependency relationship with them. When citing or linking to data from these projects, follow the source attribution and licensing requirements of each.

Garance — Archives nationales de France

Project URL: https://rdf.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/garance/pages/en/ Repository: github.com/sparna-git/garance Reference data: github.com/ArchivesNationalesFR/Referentiels SPARQL endpoint: https://sparql.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/garance/sparql Lead: Archives nationales de France (with Sparna).

Garance (Graphe des Archives nationales pour la Recherche, l’Accès et la Navigation des Connaissances Enrichies — Graph of the Archives nationales de France for Research, Access and Navigation of Enriched Knowledge) is the public RDF/SKOS dissemination platform for AnF reference datasets. Approximately:

• 18,400 agents
• 54,000 places
• 3,400 concepts (controlled vocabularies)

modelled in RiC-O 1.1 + SKOS, exposed as dereferenceable URIs with content negotiation, RDF/XML and CSV downloads, EAC-CPF for archival creators, generated entity pages, and a SPARQL 1.1 endpoint backed by QLever.

Why OpenRiC tracks Garance

Garance demonstrates several patterns that OpenRiC adopts:

How OpenRiC uses Garance

Three permitted uses, with attribution and original-URI preservation:

1. As an architecture reference — for the publication patterns above.
2. As an interoperability benchmark — for SHACL / vocabulary / entity-page conformance discussions.
3. As an external authority-linking target — Garance entity URIs MAY be used in OpenRiC graphs via skos:exactMatch / skos:closeMatch. Example:

<.../agent/local-123> a rico:Person ;
    rico:name "Example Person" ;
    skos:closeMatch <https://rdf.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/agent/009941> .

Use skos:closeMatch unless identity equivalence is confirmed strongly enough for owl:sameAs.

What OpenRiC does NOT do with Garance

• Does not copy or rebrand AnF data as OpenRiC content.
• Does not make Garance a required dependency for OpenRiC conformance.
• Does not mint new OpenRiC URIs for Garance entities; the original Garance URI is the canonical identity.
• Does not imply ownership, endorsement, or formal partnership unless such a relationship is explicitly established with AnF.

The AnF Referentiels repository states that the metadata may be reused (commercially and non-commercially) provided redistribution carries precise origin attribution to “Archives nationales de France” and the date of the metadata. When citing entity descriptions, prefer the Garance entity URI.

ICA-EGAD RiC-O 1.1 (canonical ontology)

Documentation: ica-egad.github.io/RiC-O/about.html Repository: github.com/ICA-EGAD/RiC-O

The canonical Records-in-Contexts ontology that OpenRiC implements. OpenRiC tracks RiC-O 1.1 (released 2025-05-22) as the authoritative source for rico:* terms; the OpenRiC extension namespace covers terms not defined in canonical 1.1. The audit document records every disposition decision.

ICA-EGAD also maintains the RiC-O Converter (EAD 2002 / EAC-CPF → RiC-O) and the RiC-AG Application Guidelines (see below).

RiC-AG — ICA-EGAD Application Guidelines

Documentation: ica-egad.github.io/RiC-AG/ Mappings: ica-egad.github.io/RiC-AG/mappings.html Maintainer: ICA-EGAD (October 2025, v0.1).

RiC-AG is the EGAD-authored practical guide to applying RiC-CM and RiC-O. v0.1 ships a crosswalk from the four legacy ICA standards — ISAD(G), ISAAR(CPF), ISDF, ISDIAH — to RiC-CM, with an EAC-CPF → RiC-O 1.1 mapping announced as “planned to be released as soon as possible.”

Why OpenRiC tracks RiC-AG

The four ICA-standard crosswalks in RiC-AG are exactly the same source-standard set OpenRiC’s mapping specification covers (ISAD(G), ISAAR(CPF), ISDF, ISDIAH). RiC-AG is the authoritative reference for that crosswalk; OpenRiC’s mapping spec now cross-references RiC-AG §1.2 and treats RiC-AG as the upstream-of-truth where the two agree. Differences (intentional or accidental) will be tracked in drift-log and proposed back to EGAD where appropriate.

How OpenRiC uses RiC-AG

• As a check on the mapping spec. Each property mapping in spec/mapping.md is verified against RiC-AG’s mappings page. Where OpenRiC and RiC-AG disagree on the canonical predicate, OpenRiC documents the divergence.
• As an upstream channel. The three OpenRiC upstream-proposal candidates (hasAppraisalInformation, containsPersonalData, ContactPoint, drafted at docs/upstream-proposals/) are framed against RiC-AG patterns and will be filed against ICA-EGAD/RiC-O once a second implementation passes conformance.

What OpenRiC does NOT do with RiC-AG

OpenRiC does not fork or republish RiC-AG content. The Application Guidelines are EGAD’s authoritative text; this spec defers to them on application-pattern questions and adds only what’s needed for a deployable HTTP API surface (URI scheme, content negotiation, conformance profiles, write API, SPARQL access, etc.).

Heratio (OpenRiC reference consumer)

Project URL: heratio.theahg.co.za Lead: The Archive and Heritage Group.

A production GLAM platform (AGPL-3.0) that consumes the OpenRiC reference API for every mutating administrative action. Heratio proves the OpenRiC contract is sufficient for a real archive, but Heratio is one consumer of OpenRiC, not a special-cased dependency — any conformant OpenRiC server can be substituted. See the home page “If you only remember one thing” callout for the contract/consumer separation.

Sparna — Garance build team and RiC-O Converter maintainers

Project URL: sparna.fr · github.com/sparna-git

Sparna built Garance for the Archives nationales de France and maintains the canonical RiC-O Converter (v3.0, March 2025). They are deeply embedded in the EGAD-adjacent community and are the natural partner for any RiC-O 1.1 publication-architecture conversation.

OpenRiC tracks Sparna as a modelling-pattern reference (the Eleventy + JSON-LD framing + PageFind + QLever pattern) and a second-implementation candidate for the sparql-access Draft profile.

Sparnatural — visual SPARQL query builder

Project URL: sparnatural.eu

A visual SPARQL query builder. Garance plans to integrate Sparnatural before end of 2026.

OpenRiC tracks Sparnatural as a complementary client surface to the OpenRiC viewer. The viewer renders graphs; Sparnatural builds queries. An institution running both could front-end its OpenRiC server with the viewer for exploration and Sparnatural for ad-hoc query construction. Optional embedding inside the OpenRiC viewer, or a standalone OpenRiC-Sparnatural bridge, is a discussion thread for v1.0+ — open via openric/spec discussions if interested.

RiC-O Converter (EAD/EAC-CPF → RiC-O)

Project URL: github.com/ArchivesNationalesFR/rico-converter Lead: Sparna + AnF Lab. Latest: v3.0 (March 2025).

The canonical EAD 2002 / EAC-CPF → RiC-O 1.1 converter. OpenRiC’s mapping spec documents the same direction at a higher level (ISAD(G) / ISAAR(CPF) / ISDIAH / ISDF source schemas → RiC-O / openricx output). The OpenRiC mapping is consistent with RiC-O Converter v3.0 conventions as of spec v0.38.0; institutions migrating existing EAD finding aids can use the Converter to bootstrap their corpus and an OpenRiC server to expose it over HTTP.

Damigos / Ionian University — RiC-CM Nav and the Corfu archives

Project URLs:

• RiC-CM NavTool (2026)
• Corfu Criminal Court Archives RiC-CM application (2025-09)
• RiC-CM ↔ CIDOC-CRM mapping paper (Damigos et al., ICADL 2023)

Lead: Matthew Damigos and the Laboratory on Digital Libraries and Electronic Publishing, Ionian University. Listed in the official ICA RiC ResourceList.

OpenRiC’s own RiC-CM browser at ric.theahg.co.za/reference/ric-cm/ parallels the Ionian RiC-CM Nav, and the relationship between the two is complementary, not competing (declared in drift-log, 2026-05-25). The OpenRiC navigator is a versioned, SPARQL-backed specification browser with declared-vs-inherited separation, tied to spec releases. The Ionian RiC-CM Nav is a standalone single-page graph navigator for conceptual exploration. The two address different reader needs (spec-version reference vs. conceptual graph traversal); no deprecation, no fork.

The Damigos group’s 2023 ICADL paper on RiC-CM ↔ CIDOC-CRM mapping is the basis for the planned OpenRiC-CIDOC-Bridge extension (post-v1.0; see docs/extensions/openric-cidoc-bridge.md).

OpenRiC tracks this group as a second-implementation candidate — the Corfu Criminal Court Archives application is the closest production deployment to a second OpenRiC implementation that the project has identified.

Other tracked deployments and resources

These are listed for visibility — OpenRiC tracks them as potential second-implementation candidates, modelling references, or community resources.

Reciprocal listings welcome

If you maintain a public RiC-O / SKOS / archival-linked-data project and would like OpenRiC to track it as a related implementation, open a pull request against openric/spec adding a section to this page. The minimum bar is: public URL, lead institution, what it demonstrates, and a clear statement of how OpenRiC users may interact with it (link target, fixture source, architectural reference, etc.).