DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT Functional Requirements for Describing Agents

DCMI Agents Working Group

Date: 2004-01-30

Creator: Andrew Wilson, National Archives of Australia

Contributor: Robina Clayphan, British Library

Status of this document: Working Draft

Description: This document outlines a set of functional requirements for describing agents.

Note: Reformatted and simplified from broken HTML source in 2026 by Tom Baker.

1. Background/Discussion

There is some ambiguity with this issue. The principle question is whether we
are trying to ‘describe’ agents or ‘identify’ them? How relevant or important
is the question? Dublin Core™ metadata is used for descriptions of
resources for the purposes of making discovering them easier. Therefore we
characterise DC metadata records as description for discovery. So can we apply
this concept to agent descriptions? Perhaps we are describing agents for the
purpose of unambiguously identifying them so they can be correctly associated
with the resources for which they are responsible? In other words, description
for identification. Agent descriptions, therefore, serve two purposes:
description and identification. So we are trying to describe agents in a way
that will allow us to:

• disambiguate different agents who have shared or similar attributes (such as name, etc);

• recognise when agents are the same, despite appearing to be different, for
  example different presentations of the same name, pseudonyms, etc.;

• contact the correct agent associated with a resource;

• and collocate all the works of any specific agent.

Disambiguation may be the most significant of these purposes. It enables
effective searching for resources by enabling a reasonable degree of certainty
about associated agents, and it is essential for protection of intellectual
property and to assist with copyright payments, where a high degree of
certainty about agents is needed.

So the resource description/discovery community needs an agent core because the
DC element set does not allow a sufficiently precise description of an agent to
support the above functions.

2. Scope

This document aims to set out the requirements and the metadata elements
needed for unambiguously describing OR identifying the agents
associated with resources. Agent descriptions may be contained within
DC metadata records, or linked to the DC metadata records for
particular resources as an associated metadata description. It is not
within the scope of this document to consider the issue of where
agent descriptions should be located. The functional requirements set
out in this document will form the basis for development of a core
set of metadata elements for describing agents.

For the purposes of this document agents are defined as persons (author,
publisher, sculptor, editor, director, etc.) or groups (organization,
corporation, library, orchestra, country, federation, etc.) that have a role in
the lifecycle of a resource.

We also point out the constraints of the various data protection acts which
ensure that there is only a limited amount of data that can legally be recorded
about persons. So dates and location may be problematic for living people
unless their explicit permission to include such data is obtained.

3. Entities

We define two classes of agents in this document:

1. Person: an individual human being, living or dead; and

2. Group: a set, either existing or defunct, of individual entities acting collectively.

4. Attributes

Each class of entity has associated with it a set of attributes or
characteristics that serve to identify that entity unambiguously from
all other entities of either class.

4.1 Attributes of a Person

This document defines the attributes of a person as the following:

4.1.1 Identifier

A scheme, numeric or alphabetic, or a combination of the two, used to
identify unambiguously a specific individual agent. No such schemes
yet exist. This element will allow for the use of such schemes when
and if they are developed.

4.1.2 Name

The name or names by which the person is known, including alternative names.

4.1.3 Dates

May include date of the person's birth and/or death, or floruit
dates (ie. an indication of the period in which the person was known
to be active in a given field of endeavour).

4.1.4 Title

A word or phrase used to identify the rank, office, nobility, honour,
etc. of the person.

4.1.5 Affiliation

The name of the organization, institution, company, or other body with which
the person was or is associated, or by whom the person was employed or
contracted.

4.1.6 Location

Information about the person’s principal area of residence over time. Context
may be indicated by the use of appropriate qualifiers (for example: Lived in
Canberra 1991-2005).

4.1.7 Email

Email address or addresses currently assigned to the person at the time of
the description.

4.1.8 Other Information

Any additional significant information about the person that is needed to
unambiguously identify that person.

4.2 Attributes of a Group

This document defines the attributes of a grou as the following:

4.2.1 Legal number

Any official number assigned by a public authority that is used to
identify the group.

4.2.2 Name

Names by which the group is or was known. May include other forms of the
name and changes of name over time.

4.2.3 Jurisdiction

The legal name of the judicial and administrative entity which has
jurisdiction over the territory in which the group operates.

4.2.4 Location

The place from which the group operated.

4.2.5 Dates

Dates indicating the period the group operated. May include such things as
date of founding and dissolution, date of legal mandate establishing
the group, etc.

4.2.6 Web Site

The http address of the world wide web site operated by the group.

4.2.7 Other Information

Any additional significant information about the group that is needed to
unambiguously identify that group.