Physical Address

Physical address is the physical location of an activity, collection, party or service, or a physical location to which mail can be sent, or some other physical location associated with the object being described.

Physical address components

Physical address type

Kinds of physical addresses are:

streetAddress: address where an entity is physically located
postalAddress: address where mail for an entity should be sent

Physical address part

Physical address parts contain descriptions of addresses, either as a single string or split into separate address lines.

Physical address part type

Categories describing the format of a physical address:

addressLine: an address part that is a separate line of a structured address
text: a single address part that contains the whole address in unstructured form
telephoneNumber: an address part that contains a telephone number, including a mobile telephone number
faxNumber: an address part that contains a fax (facsimile) number.

Values following Australian standard AS 4590:2006 Interchange of client information can be used by Australian providers if preferred. More information

Language

The language in which the physical address is recorded can be described using <xml:lang>.

Use in Research Data Australia

Physical address is used to record street or postal addresses as part of contact details. These may be used to find out more about activities or services, or to request access to collections or services. All physical address information is displayed.

RIF-CS best practice guidelines

When to use physical addresses

Generally electronic addresses for email addresses or web pages are preferred for use in Research Data Australia.

Include physical addresses if

electronic addresses are not available
the collection or service being described is physical and can be visited e.g. an archive, museum or physical facility of some kind
traditional mail addressed to a person or organisation is required for accessing a collection or service. It is not necessary to include physical addresses for parties as a general rule—this can be volatile information that is difficult to keep up-to-date.

Address Part

Address Part holds either a full or partial address. Multiple <addressPart> elements may be used to divide the full address into meaningful fragments (for example street address, postcode, country).

Address Part Type

XHTML text formatting
Some text formatting capabilities are provided to allow for more flexible display of information in Research Data Australia.
You can use this method to ensure addresses display on different lines and with your desired formatting.
A widget is provided for manual data entry or formatted text can be provided in XML feeds. More information about text formatting
Structured address information map be mapped to AS 4590:2006 Interchange of client information values. More information about using AS4590
Use a type of "addressLine" for legacy or non-specific address information.
Use of multiple addressLine types is not recommended due to problems in displaying this information. Consider using XHTML text formatting instead.

States and territories

Encode Australian stateOrTerritory in addressPart as AS 4590 compliant values:

ACT | NSW | NT | QLD | SA | TAS | VIC | WA.

Recording an incomplete address in Australia

For registry objects located in Australia, if an address is not available, include an ISO 3166-2 occurrence of the <spatial> element with the value 'AU' and, when the state is known, an ISO 3166-2 occurrence of the <spatial> element with the appropriate state code:

Telephone numbers and fax numbers

Telephone and fax numbers are most appropriate for party records where contact details for a person or organisation are provided. For collections, activities and services, this information should generally be stored in associated party records rather than in collection, activity or service records. However, physical addresses for collections, activities or service records are permitted.

Telephone and fax information was previously recorded in the electronic address element, but has been relocated to the physical address element with the introduction of RIF-CS v1.2.0 to accommodate partner formatting requirements.

Formatting of telephone numbers:

No format is specified. Data providers may follow AS 4590:2006 Interchange of client information or use custom formats for telephone numbers and fax numbers. Spaces, hyphens, parentheses or the form +61 for Australian country code are permitted.

The ANDS Research Data Australia portal is available worldwide. Accordingly, inclusion of the international dialling code (61) with all telephone and fax numbers is recommended to support international collaboration.

Formatting examples (not a complete list of possibilities):

Telephone or fax number with country code
61 453276731
+61 4 5327 6731

Telephone or fax number with area code
(04) 5327 6731
04 5327 6731
0453276731

Mobile telephone number
0416 345 678
0416345678

RIF-CS examples

Example showing physical address using addressLine :

Note that there is no method for ordering multiple address lines, and they can only be displayed in the order they are entered. An alternative is to use text formatting. More information about text formatting

<location>
    <address>
    <physical type="streetAddress">
      <addressPart type="addressLine">798 Palmer Street</addressPart>
      <addressPart type="addressLine">Townsville QLD 4810</addressPart>
      <addressPart type="addressLine">Australia</addressPart>
      <addressPart type="telephoneNumber">61 07 1234 5678</addressPart>
      <addressPart type="faxNumber">61 07 1234 5699</addressPart>
    </physical>
   </address>
</location>

Example showing location in Australian if exact address is unknown:

This example shows how to record a location in Tasmania where the exact address is not known.

<location>
<spatial type="iso31662">AU-TAS</spatial>
</location>:

Street address with telephone and fax numbers described using AS 4590-2006 elements:

<location>
    <address>
    <physical type="streetAddress">
      <addressPart type="houseNumber">798</houseNumber>
      <addressPart type="streetName">Palmer Street</streetName>
      <addressPart type="suburbOrPlaceOrLocality">Townsville</addressPart>
      <addressPart type="stateOrTerritory">QLD</addressPart>
      <addressPart type="postCode">4810</addressPart>
      <addressPart type="country">Australia</addressPart>
      <addressPart type="telephoneNumber">61 07 1234 5678</addressPart>
      <addressPart type="faxNumber">61 07 1234 5699</addressPart>
    </physical>
   </address>
</location>

Telephone and fax numbers provided alone without a street or postal address:

Date	Change history
April 2010	Consultation draft
26 October 2010	RIF-CS 1.2.0 change information added
24 June 2011	AS 4590 information removed to separate linked page
22 Nov 2011	Added links to text formatting information, added advice against using multiple addressLine types

Please send any feedback on this page to guides@ands.org.au