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Every URN in NRS has to be unique. In order to give groups at Harvard the most flexibility in creating unique URNs, groups are given control over a set of URNs that begin with a specific set of characters. A Naming Authority is the set of characters an administrative unit uses to create URNs. Groups can create child Naming Authorities in a hierarchical tree structure to further split up a Naming Authority. URNs display the parent child relationships by using a period between the parts. For instance, URN-3:RAD is a parent Naming Authority, and URN-3:RAD.ARCH is a child Naming Authority.
The root naming authority in NRS (URN-3) is administered by LTS. LTS has established a number of top-level naming authorities under URN-3 that correspond to Harvard schools or administrative units:
FHCL is Harvard College Library; RAD is Radcliffe Institute; and RAD.ARCH is Radcliffe Archives.
Every naming authority is given a unique name known as an authority path. An authority path for a given authority includes the path of its parent as a dot-separated prefix. Thus, the hierarchy represented above includes naming authorities with the following authority paths:
If the HUL.OIS authority delegated a new child authority, Guest, its authority path would be:
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