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3.21 VEO Identifier

The VEO Identifier (M99) uniquely identifies the record within an archival jurisdiction. This element has been added in the VERS Standard and should be used instead of the Record Identifier (M65) element. The contents of the VEO Identifier (M99) identify the agency, series, files, and record. The combination of agency, series, and record will uniquely identify the record within an archival jurisdiction and ensures that records from different agencies will have unique identifiers.

A unique identifier is necessary, as an archive will receive records from many agencies and from many recordkeeping systems within the agency. Note that a record identifier is normally only unique within a recordkeeping system which, in turn, is only unique within an agency.

The VEO Identifier (M99) element is equivalent to the AGLS Identifier element.

Figure 19. Subelements of the VEO Identifier element.

The subelements of VEO Identifier are:

• Agency Identifier (M100). This uniquely identifies the agency that owns the VEO. For Victorian agencies this is allocated by PROV (it is also known as the 'VA' number). It is not an abbreviation of the agency's name.
• Series Identifier (M101). This uniquely identifies the series within the agency. Normally, a series identifies a recordkeeping system within the agency. The unique identifiers used to label records (see VERS Record Identifier (M103)) must be unique within a series.
• File Identifier (M102). These elements uniquely identify the folder(s) (file(s)) on which the record is filed. The expectation is that a File Identifier (M102) will be unique within a series. File Identifier (M102) can be repeated; this allows records to be associated with more than one folder in a series.
• VERS Record Identifier (M103). This element uniquely identifies the record within the series (recordkeeping system).

It should be noted that the values of all four elements are encapsulated within <vers:Text> tags. That is, for example,

<vers:VERSRecordIdentifier>
   <vers:Text>11234</vers:Text>
</vers:VERSRecordIdentifier>

not

<vers:VERSRecordIdentifier>11234</vers:VERSRecordIdentifier>

The <vers:Text> tag is used within a VEO where it is expected that one day it may be necessary to break the information in a subelement into finer subelements. In this case, the contents of a VERS Record Identifier (M103) might one day be broken up into a year and an annual single number:

<vers:VERSRecordIdentifier>
   <vers:Text>2003/1223</vers:Text>
   <vers:Year>2003</vers:Year>
   <vers:Number>1223</vers:Number>
</vers:VERSRecordIdentifier>

The use of the <vers:Text> subelement indicates that the value of this element is a textual representation of the information in the other elements.

An example of a minimal VEO Identifier follows:

   <vers:VEOIdentifier>
   <vers:FileIdentifier>
   <vers:Text>99/876</vers:Text>
   </vers:FileIdentifier>
   <vers:VERSRecordIdentifier>
   <vers:Text>11234</vers:Text>
   </vers:VERSRecordIdentifier>
</vers:VEOIdentifier>

An example of a full VEO Identifier including an agency and a series identifier follows:

<vers:VEOIdentifier>
   <vers:AgencyIdentifier>
   <vers:Text>VA 654</vers:Text>
   </vers:AgencyIdentifier>
   <vers:SeriesIdentifier>
   <vers:Text>1123</vers:Text>
   </vers:SeriesIdentifier>
   <vers:FileIdentifier>
   <vers:Text>99-89</vers:Text>
   </vers:FileIdentifier>
   <vers:VERSRecordIdentifier>
   <vers:Text>100</vers:Text>
   </vers:VERSRecordIdentifier>
</vers:VEOIdentifier>

An example of a VEO Identifier with multiple folders follows:

<vers:VEOIdentifier>
   <vers:AgencyIdentifier>
   <vers:Text>VA 654</vers:Text>
   </vers:AgencyIdentifier>
   <vers:SeriesIdentifier>
   <vers:Text>1123</vers:Text>
   </vers:SeriesIdentifier>
   <vers:FileIdentifier>
   <vers:Text>99-89</vers:Text>
   </vers:FileIdentifier>
   <vers:FileIdentifier>
   <vers:Text>03-78</vers:Text>
   </vers:FileIdentifier>
   <vers:VERSRecordIdentifier>
   <vers:Text>100</vers:Text>
   </vers:VERSRecordIdentifier>
</vers:VEOIdentifier>

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