Extensions Beyond ISO 690

ISO 690 defines the conceptual framework for bibliographic references — what data elements exist and how they should be presented. But it deliberately does not specify a data model for machine-readable citations. Relaton fills that gap, and in doing so extends the model significantly beyond what ISO 690 requires.

This page documents every attribute and entity that Relaton adds beyond the ISO 690 standard.

The Extension Architecture

Relaton's BibliographicItem has two kinds of fields:

1. ISO 690 fields — direct implementations of ISO 690 data elements (title, contributor, date, series, etc.)
2. Relaton extensions — fields needed for standards development that ISO 690 does not cover

The extensions fall into four categories: document lifecycle, inter-document relations, rights and metadata, and operational infrastructure.

Document Lifecycle

ISO 690 has no concept of publication status — it assumes a reference points to a published resource. In standards development, documents move through stages: drafts, public reviews, approvals, withdrawals.

Document Status

status:
  stage: draft-public
  substage: active
  iteration: 2

Field	Values	Description
stage	draft-internal, draft-wip, draft-prelim, draft-public, final, final-review	Where the document is in its lifecycle
substage	active, retired, withdrawn	Whether the document is current
iteration	integer	Revision iteration within a stage

Validity Period

validity:
  begins: '2024-01-15'
  ends: '2029-01-15'
  revision: '2026-01-15'

Some standards have defined validity periods. This models when a document becomes effective, when it expires, and when it is scheduled for review.

Version vs. Edition

ISO 690 has edition. Relaton adds version with richer semantics:

version:
  - type: draft
    content: '3'
    revision_date: '2024-06-01'
    draft: true

This captures draft numbers and revision dates — essential for tracking standards development.

Inter-Document Relations

ISO 690 mentions that resources can be related to each other but provides no formal model for those relationships. Relaton defines 50+ typed relation types based on the FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) model.

Complete Relation Type Taxonomy

Category	Types
Containment	includes / includedIn, hasPart / partOf
Consolidation	merges / mergedInto, splits / splitInto
FRBR Work level	instanceOf / hasInstance, exemplarOf / hasExemplar
FRBR Expression	manifestationOf / hasManifestation, reproductionOf / hasReproduction, reprintOf / hasReprint
FRBR Expression	expressionOf / hasExpression
Translation	translatedFrom / hasTranslation
Adaptation	arrangementOf / hasArrangement, abridgementOf / hasAbridgement, annotationOf / hasAnnotation, adaptedFrom / hasAdaptation
Draft lineage	draftOf / hasDraft, predecessorDraftOf / hasPredecessorDraft, successorDraftOf / hasSuccessorDraft
Edition	editionOf / hasEdition
Update	updates / updatedBy
Derivation	derivedFrom / derives
Description	describes / describedBy, catalogues / cataloguedBy
Succession	hasSuccessor / successorOf
Adoption	adoptedFrom / adoptedAs
Review	reviewOf / hasReview, commentaryOf / hasCommentary
Complement	hasComplement / complementOf
Obsolescence	obsoletes / obsoletedBy
Citation	cites / isCitedIn
Equivalence	identical, equivalent, nonequivalent, related

Each relation links to a ReducedBibliographicItem with locality stacks for specifying exact extents (pages, sections, volumes).

Structured Identification

ISO 690 treats identifiers as opaque strings. Relaton decomposes them into machine-parseable structures.

Document Identifiers

docidentifier:
  - id: ISO 19115-1:2014
    type: ISO
    primary: true
    scope: publisher

Each identifier has a type (ISO, IEC, DOI, ISSN, etc.), an optional scope (publisher, ISBN, etc.), and a primary flag.

Structured Identifier

structuredidentifier:
  type: ISO
  agency:
    - ISO
    - TC 211
  docnumber: '19115'
  partnumber: '1'
  edition: '1'
  year: '2014'
  supplementtype: IS
  supplementnumber: '1'
  amendment: '2'
  corrigendum: '1'

This decomposes a publication identifier into its semantic components — agency, document number, part, supplement, amendment, corrigendum, year. This enables programmatic parsing and comparison of identifiers.

Internal Document Number

docnumber provides a normalized, sort-friendly identifier distinct from the display identifier.

Rights and Ownership

Copyright

copyright:
  - from: '2014'
    to: '2024'
    owner:
      - organization:
          name:
            - content: International Organization for Standardization
              language: en

ISO 690 does not model copyright. Relaton tracks the copyright date range and owning organization.

License

license:
  - CC-BY-SA-4.0

Explicit license identifiers — important for open standards.

Metadata Extensions

Keywords

keyword:
  - vocab:
      content: geographic information
    taxon:
      - content: GIS
    vocabid:
      - type: ISO
        code: '01.020'
        term: Terminology

ISO 690 has no keyword concept. Relaton models keywords with controlled vocabulary references, taxonomy terms, and vocabulary identifiers. This supports standards classification and search.

Classification

classification:
  - id: '35.240.60'
    type: ICS

Typed classification codes (e.g., ICS codes) — reused from the DocumentIdentifier structure.

Abstract

abstract:
  - content: >-
      This document specifies requirements...
    language: en
    script: Latn

ISO 690 does not include abstracts in references. Relaton adds them as localizable structured content.

Extended Enumerations

Date Types

ISO 690 defines ~3 date types (published, accessed, created). Relaton defines 16:

Type	Description
published	Publication date
accessed	Last access date
created	Creation date
implemented	Implementation date
obsoleted	Obsolescence date
confirmed	Confirmation date
updated	Update date
corrected	Correction date
issued	Issue date
transmitted	Transmission date
copied	Copy date
unchanged	Date marked as unchanged
circulated	Circulation date
adapted	Adaptation date
vote-started	Voting start date
vote-ended	Voting end date
announced	Announcement date
stable-until	Stability expiry date

Contributor Roles

ISO 690 defines ~4 roles (author, editor, publisher, translator). Relaton defines 11:

Role	Description
author	Primary author
editor	Editor
realizer	Realizer/producer
performer	Performer
translator	Translator
adapter	Adapter
publisher	Publisher
distributor	Distributor
owner	Rights owner
authorizer	Authorizing body
enabler	Enabler/facilitator
subject	Subject of the work

Resource Types (BibItemType)

ISO 690 defines 16 resource categories. Relaton defines 28+, combining ISO 690 types with BibTeX entry types:

article, book, booklet, manual, proceedings, presentation, thesis, techReport, standard, unpublished, map, electronicResource, audiovisual, film, video, broadcast, graphicWork, music, patent, inBook, inCollection, inProceedings, journal, webResource, website, dataset, archival, software, socialMedia, alert, message, conversation, misc

Physical and Digital Extensions

Field	Description
size	Typed size values (e.g., pages, data size) — structured beyond ISO 690's flat extent
price	Price with currency code
depiction	Image depictions with dimensions, MIME type, alt text
accesslocation	Explicit access locations (physical or digital)

The Extension Block (ext)

All flavor-specific extensions live inside the ext element, providing a clean separation between the core model and SDO-specific data:

ext:
  schema_version: '1.0.0'
  doctype:
    abbreviation: IS
    content: international-standard
  subdoctype: specification
  flavor: iso
  ics:
    - code: '35.240.60'
      text: IT applications in transport and trade
  structuredidentifier:
    - type: ISO
      docnumber: '19115'
      partnumber: '1'

Each flavor gem defines its own ext structure. See Flavor Model Extensions for per-flavor details.

Formal Model Definitions

The Relaton model is formally defined in:

• relaton-models — 40+ entity definitions in LutaML, RelaxNG schemas, UML diagrams
• relaton-model-3gpp — 3GPP-specific model extensions
• relaton-model-ieee — IEEE-specific model extensions
• relaton-model-w3c — W3C-specific model extensions

View UML diagrams → | Flavor model extensions →