Title: AGLS Availability Encoding Scheme
Creator: Andrew Wilson, National Archives of Australia
Creator: Nigel Ward
Date Issued: 2002-02-19
The AGLS metadata standard allows the description of both electronic and non-electronic resources. Electronic resources are accessed through a URL in the AGLS Identifier element. Information about how to obtain non-electronic resources is provided by the AGLS Availability element. The AGLS Availability scheme is a method for describing accessibility characteristics of the person or organisation making non-electronic resources available.
There are a number of characteristics of resource accessibility that can be described in metadata. These include, but are not limited to:
Here we define AGLS Availability, a structuring scheme for providing information about accessibility characteristics of non-electronic resources, and describe a method for encoding AGLS Availability as a profile of DCSV (Dublin Core Structured Values).
Typically, values for the AGLS Availability element will contain information about the agent making the resource available. Other methods for describing characteristics of agents are possible. The vCARD specification is a standard for automating the exchange of personal information typically found on a traditional business card. The specification for the vCard protocol (RFC 2426 of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)) is available at www.imc.org/rfc2426. The X.500 protocol is a method for structuring directory databases, typically databases of names of individuals and/or organisations. The X.500 specification is available at www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/rec/x/x500up/x500.html.
A companion document to this description of the AGLS Availability scheme is the description of a scheme for structuring values for the AGLS Agent elements. The components of the two schemes overlap to some extent but the semantic differences between the elements and the additional components available for use with the Availability element require separate schemes for the two sets of structuring components.
AGLS describes resource accessibility using the following characteristics:
| personalName | The name of a person making the resource available |
|---|---|
| corporateName | The name of an organisation making the resource available |
| jurisdiction | The legal jurisdiction of the agent making the resource available – NB values for this component should be drawn from the AGLS Jurisdiction scheme |
| contact | Contact details for the agent making the resource available. Can include an official title. Typically includes a phone number |
| address | Street or postal address for the agent making the resource available |
| Email address for the agent making the resource available | |
| hours | Hours during which service can be accessed at the locations identified in address components |
| cost | Cost of obtaining the resource |
| postcode | Australian postcode(s) where the resource is available, typically used in describing availability of services |
All of these components are optional and ordering is not significant. All of the components may be repeated.
The components of an AGLS Availability description have no meaning when considered separately. In any particular instance of the scheme it is the complete set of components used which acts as the description of how a resource is made available. Thus, use of AGLS Availability to identify the availability of a resource requires that the components are linked together. This is conveniently accomplished by packaging the components into a single text-string. Various syntaxes for the text string are available, including Dublin Core Structured Values (DCSV) and eXtensible Markup Language (XML).
Within AGLS metadata descriptions using HTML syntax, characteristics of resource accessibility are encoded using the Dublin Core Structured Values scheme (dublincore.org/documents/1999/04/30/labelled-values-syntax).DCSV describes how to write a structured metadata value in a simple text string. It separates components using semicolons ";". The name of a component and the value of a component are separated by an equals sign "=".
Writing AGLS Availability using DCSV notation is straightforward using the component names defined above. For example:
corporateName=v1; jurisdiction=v2; address=v3; address=v4; contact=v5; contact=v6
where v1 – v6 are values as defined in the table above.
AGLS Availability may be written in XML. Given the flexibility of XML many alternative notations are possible. One form looks like this:
<agls:Availability> <avail:corporateName>v1</avail:corporateName> <avail:jurisdiction>v2</avail:jurisdiction> <avail:address>v3</avail:address> <avail:contact>v4</avail:contact> <avail:hours>v5</avail:hours> <avail:cost>v6</avail:cost> </agls:Availability>
Notice to implementers: the XML examples in this document are indicative only and should not be taken as normative. At the time of writing, syntaxes for expressing AGLS in XML and RDF/XML are under review. Recommendations on encoding AGLS metadata in XML and RDF will be made in the future.
NB. The XML namespace URIs used in the XML examples below are fictitious.
The World War I dossier request service from the National Archives of Australia.
<meta name="AGLS.Availability" scheme="AglsAvail" content="corporateName=National Archives of Australia; address=Box 7425 Canberra Mail Centre ACT 2610; contact=WW1 Personnel Records Service, 02 6212 3439; email=ww1prs@naa.gov.au; cost=$AU15.00">
<agls:agls-record xmlns:dc="http://dublincore.org/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:agls="http://agls.gov.au/agls/1.2"
xmlns:AglsAvail="http://agls.gov.au/availability/1.0">
<agls:Availability>
<AglsAvail:corporateName>National Archives of Australia</AglsAvail:corporateName>
<AglsAvail:address>Box 7425, Canberra Mail Centre ACT 2610</AglsAvail:address>
<AglsAvail:contact>WW1 Personnel Records Service, 02 6212 3439 </AglsAvail:contact>
<AglsAvail:email>ww1prs@naa.gov.au</AglsAvail:email>
<AglsAvail:cost>$A15.00</AglsAvail:cost>
</agls:Availability>
</agls:agls-record>
<meta name="AGLS.Availability" scheme="AglsAvail" content="corporateName=Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages; jurisdiction=Queensland; address=501 Ann Street, Brisbane; address=PO Box 188, Brisbane Albert Street, Qld, 4002; contact=Phone (07) 3247 9203; contact=Fax (07) 3247 5803; hours=Monday to Friday, 9:00am - 4:30pm (excluding public holidays)">
<agls:agls-record xmlns:dc="http://dublincore.org/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:agls="http://agls.gov.au/agls/1.2"
xmlns:AglsAvail="http://agls.gov.au/availability/1.0">
<agls:Availability>
<AglsAvail:corporateName>Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages </AglsAvail:corporateName>
<AglsAvail:jurisdiction>Queensland</AglsAvail:jurisdiction>
<AglsAvail:address>501 Ann Street, Brisbane</AglsAvail:address>
<AglsAvail:address>PO Box 188, Brisbane Albert Street, Qld, 4002</AglsAvail:address>
<AglsAvail:contact>Phone (07) 3247 9203</AglsAvail:contact>
<AglsAvail:contact> Fax (07) 3247 5803</AglsAvail:contact>
<AglsAvail:hours> Monday to Friday, 9:00am - 4:30pm (excluding public holidays)</AglsAvail:hours>
</agls:Availability>
</agls:agls-record>