Definition

A unique and persistent identifier for each office or unit at Dalhousie University. 

Introduction

The University Archives assigns unique and persistent Office IDs to each office or unit at the University. The IDs are generated by the University Archives and assigned to offices when signing authorities are approved. The Archives maintains the IDs in the archival authority record (ISAAR 5.1.6 Identifiers for corporate bodies).

The Office ID serve several purposes:

• The Office ID is used in signing authorities, disposition authorization forms, and other documents produced in the course of records management activities. 
  
  
• The Office ID is used to support the transfer of electronic records to the University Archives. 
  
  
• The Office ID is used as the Producer Source ID, which helps identify the origin of SIPs sent to the Archives. 

Conventions for creating Office IDs

The Archives creates unique IDs for OPRs using the following conventions:

1. Identifiers follow the rules prescribed in the International Standard Identifier for Libraries and Related Organizations (ISO 15511).
   
   
   1. Alphanumeric code with a maximum of 16 characters
      
      
   2. Valid symbols are A-Z, 0-9, solidus, hyphen-minus, and colon
      
      
2. The first sub-unit of the identifier is the two-digit country code (ISO 3166-1) for Canada, followed by a hyphen.
   
   
3. The second sub-unit of the identifier is the Canadian Library Symbol for the Killam Memorial Library (NSHD), followed by a solidus.
   
   
4. The third sub-unit of the identifier is a two-digit code to uniquely identify each faculty or high-level unit, followed by a hyphen. Refer to the list of approved two-digit codes.
   
   
5. The fourth sub-unit of the identifier is a two-digit code to uniquely identify each department or business area within the faculty or unit.

Two-digit codes for faculties or high-level units

Example Office IDs

The following table provides some sample Office IDs

Related terms

Archival authority record

DalCLASS

Office of Primary Responsibility

Office of Secondary Responsibility

Producer

Producer Source ID