OAI PMH english version
The National Archives publish data to Archives Portal Europe via OAI-PMH. OAI-PMH is a standard protocol for metadata harvesting, i.e. collection of metadata from different sources. OAI-PMH uses HTTP for request and response, with the response in XML format (content-type: text/xml).
OAI-PMH is intended for harvesting, i.e. mass retrieval for processing and storing in other systems. There are no search or sorting facilities. If you know the ifentifier (reference code) for a specific record, it is possible to retrieve full metadata for that record using the method GetRecord.
https://oai-pmh.riksarkivet.se/OAI
The National Archives OAI-PMH Repository supports the following OAI-PMH methods "verbs":
https://oai-pmh.riksarkivet.se/OAI?verb=Identify
The response contains basic information about the service.
https://oai-pmh.riksarkivet.se/OAI?verb=ListMetadataFormats
The response lists the XML fromts for metadata which the service supports.
NB! the service does not support the query parameter identifier={identifier} to list which metadata formats are available for a single record.
- Encoded Archival Description, Archives Portal Europe adaptation (apeEAD), XML schema for apeEAD is a subset of XML schemat for EAD2002
- Encoded Archival Description, National Archives adaptation (RA-EAD), another subset of XML schemat for EAD2002
https://oai-pmh.riksarkivet.se/OAI?verb=ListAllAuth
The response lists the datasets available for ListIdentifier calls. NB! the ListAllAuth method is not part of the OAI-PMH standard. The result refers to the OAI-PMH XML schema, but cannot be validated against the schema.
The service does not support the method ListSets.
https://oai-pmh.riksarkivet.se/OAI/{dataset}?verb=ListIdentifiers
e.g.
https://oai-pmh.riksarkivet.se/OAI/SE_ULA?verb=ListIdentifiers
The response lists all identifiers for records in the dataset. The service supports filtering on the records' timestamps by using the query parameters from and until.
Note that the dataset id must be specified in the address (/SE_ULA in the exemplet).
The service does not support the ListRecords method. To fetch the complete data of a dataset, use ListIdentifiers and then a GetRecord call for each identifier.
where metadata-prefix must be one of
| prefix | metadata format |
|---|---|
| oai_ape_ead | EAD XML, APE adaptation |
| oai_ra_ead | EAD XML, National Archives adaptation |
identifier is the National Archives reference code, e.g.
- SE/ULA/10012 - Alunda kyrkoarkiv (archive)
- SE/ULA/10012/A 1 - Husförhörslängder (series)
- SE/ULA/10012/A 1/1 - 1752 - 1764 (volume)
Note that if the identifier contains blank spaces " ", these must be UR encoded using "+" (not "%20").
Example:
The response contains complete data for a singe record in the specified data format (apeEad or RA-EAD). EAD (Encoded Archival Description) is a standard XML format for exchanging archival information. The National Archives OAI-PMH service can, as described above, deliver data in two different EAD based formats.
Description of EAD data for archival records:
The National Archives provide archive metadata to Archives Portal Europe by the OAI-PMH service. This metadata is available for searching, together with metadata from a large number of other european archive institutions. All data in APE is provided with a CC0 license. APE also provides a REST API. Note that this API requires an API key.
The National Archives use the OAI-PMH service to generate a dataset with publicly available archive metadata for download. The intention is to update the dataset yearly.
