OAI-PMH
The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) is a protocol developed to collect metadata descriptions of records in an archive so that services can be built using metadata from multiple archives. Metadata records from Alvin can be retrieved via the protocol OAI-PMH, Version 2.
Alvin's metadata records are freely available under Creative Commons CC0.
The protocol consists of six different types of requests (verbs) that specify which service is being called:
List of requests
Identify
https://www.alvin-portal.org/oai/oai?verb=Identify
Retrieves basic information about the archive, such as its name, URL, and protocol version
ListMetadataFormats
https://www.alvin-portal.org/oai/oai?verb=ListMetadataFormats
Returns a list of the metadata formats that the archive can provide. Records from Alvin can be retrieved in the basic format oai_dc (see mapping specification below)
Dublin Core mapping to the Alvin format
<dc:title> Title
Stated as Main title : subtitle if subtitle exists. Alternative titles are not stated.
<dc:creator> Creator
If a person or organisation has the role Author. Stated as: Last name, First name Number, Addition, Years or Organisation. Subunit.
<dc:subject> Subject
All types of subjects in this element except geographic or place names (authority records).
<dc:coverage> Place name
Authority record for place as a subject word or geographic subject word.
<dc:description> Description
Description/summary
<dc:publisher> Publisher
Publisher (imprint for early printed books).
<dc:contributor> Contributor
If a person or organisation has a role other than Author. Stated as: Last name, First name Number, Addition, Years or Organisation. Subunit.
<dc:date> Year of creation/publication
Stated as in the records, if specific years YYYY-YYYY, otherwise as free text "Displayed as".
<dc:type> Resource type
Fixed values in English according to the Library of Congress Resource Types Scheme.
List
<dc:identifier> Identifier
- Permanent link, urn:nbn stated as url: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:alvin:portal:record-1
- Archival institution + subcollection, sublocation, shelf mark. If sublocation and shelf mark are missing only name. Example: Uppsala University Library, Waller Ms se-00004.
<dc:language> Language
Language, displayed as text in English, e.g. English.
<dc:format> Physical description.
- The fields Extent and Measure stated as in the records.
- Digital version + type in English, e.g. Digital, reformatted digital. Only if Digital format exists, can be used to identify which resources are published digitally.
<dc:rights> Rights
Applies to digital content (files). Stated in English according to the options for Rights.
List
ListSets
https://www.alvin-portal.org/oai/oai?verb=ListSets
Retrieves the set structure of the archive that enables grouping of records into subsets. Records from Alvin can be retrieved in limited sets based on the owning institution.
Id for setSpec corresponds to the id of an archival institution in Alvin
Example: setSpec 3 contains all records from Uppsala University Library (alvin-location:3).
GetRecord
https://www.alvin-portal.org/oai/oai?verb=GetRecord&identifier=oai:ALVIN.org:1&metadataPrefix=oai_dc
Retrieves a single, individual metadata record. Required parameters specify the identifier (identifier) and format (metadataPrefix) of the metadata to be included in the record.
A record (record) is metadata expressed in a single format. It is uniquely identified by the combination of the unique identifier of the object from which the record is accessed, the metadata prefix that identifies the metadata format of the record, and the datestamp. The XML encoding of records is organised into the following parts:
- header - contains the unique identifier of the object as well as properties required for selective harvesting. It consists of the following parts:
- identifier - the unique identifier of an object in an archive
- datestamp - the date of creation or modification of the record, to be used for selective harvesting
- setSpec - sets that the record is part of, to be used for selective harvesting
- metadata - a single manifestation of metadata from an object. It contains a single root element, for example oai_dc:dc, with subelements belonging to the corresponding metadata format.
ListRecords
https://www.alvin-portal.org/oai/oai?verb=ListRecords&metadataPrefix=oai_dc
Retrieves complete metadata records from the archive. If the number of records retrieved exceeds 100, a list of the first 100 records is returned + a resumptionToken element at the end of the response which is used to continue harvesting of the complete list. No other parameters can then be used. If resumptionToken is missing, metadataPrefix is a required parameter.
ListIdentifiers
https://www.alvin-portal.org/oai/oai?verb=ListIdentifiers&metadataPrefix=oai_dc
As ListRecords but only retrieves headers (identifier, set, and datestamp), not the full metadata records.
