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3.4 Subject

Records can be classified in many ways, but two common methods are by subject or by function. There are metadata elements to represent both methods of classification: Subject (M37) contains the subject classification, and Function (M50) contains the functional classification. Normally, only one of these two elements would be used.

The Subject (M37) element is equivalent to the AGLS Subject element.

The subelements have the following meanings:

• Subject (M37). This allows a hierarchy of subjects to be built up.
• Keyword Level (M38). The level of the keyword.
• Keyword (M39). The keywords at this level. At least one keyword must be present in each Subject (M37) element. Note that Keyword (M39) is classed as conditional, as Subject (M37) is optional.

There are two ways of representing Subjects:

• A simple list of subject headings. In this case, the Subject element has only a list of Keyword (M39) subelements. For example:
  

  <vers:Subject>
     <vers:Keyword>Engineering</vers:Keyword>
     <vers:Keyword>Pumphouse</vers:Keyword>
     <vers:Keyword>Architectural</vers:Keyword>
     </vers:Subject>

• A hierarchical structure of subject headings. In this case, the Subject element has subordinate Subject elements. The Keyword Level (M38) subelement is optional; when used it indicates the level of the keyword in the hierarchy, as in the following example:
  

  <vers:Subject>
     <vers:Subject>
      <vers:KeywordLevel>2</vers:KeywordLevel>
      <vers:Keyword>Architectural</vers:Keyword>
     </vers:Subject>
     <vers:KeywordLevel>1</vers:KeywordLevel>
     <vers:Keyword>Engineering</vers:Keyword>
  </vers:Subject>

  Note that the lower level keywords (e.g. level 2) appear before the enclosing levels (e.g. level 1).

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