OWG

Principles

These principles are intended to be stable over time and guide future design decisions.

Identity Is The Product

The primary product of OWG is durable identity.

Stewardship Over Ownership

OWG exists to steward knowledge about works, not to own works.

Reconciliation Over Replacement

OWG seeks to connect and reconcile existing systems rather than replace them.

Global Identity, Local Authority

A shared identity layer can coexist with local collections, policies, and holdings.

Humans First

Identifiers should be optimized for human use whenever practical.

Computers can adapt.

Humans are the scarce resource.

Length Is An Allocation Policy

Identifier length is not part of identifier meaning.

Consumers must not infer semantics from identifier length.

Provenance Matters

Assertions should be attributable to sources.

Reconciliation should be transparent.

Build On Existing Knowledge

OWG prefers adopting proven standards and practices over inventing replacements.

LRM, DOI, Wikidata, OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia, and library science provide important lessons and foundations.