The document discusses the importance of authority control in library metadata, emphasizing how it helps maintain consistent terms for names, subjects, and titles to enhance user experience. It details how authority control is implemented within the dpanther digital repository at Florida International University, which houses a variety of resources and relies on controlled vocabularies such as the Library of Congress/NACO Authority File. The presentation points out areas for improvement in dpanther's authority control system to better disambiguate and collocate similar items.

1. Authority Control in dPanther:
Use Controlled Vocabularies for Names
Zhonghua Du
Metadata and Cataloging Services Librarian
Florida International University Libraries
-- Metadata Authorities Workshop of the dPanther Users’ Group
July 7, 2015

2. Outline
1) Review the concept of authority control
2) Look into the authority control in dPanther
3) Discuss name authority control

3. 1) Authority Control

4. The definition of authority control
 Establish unique forms of terms—names, subjects, and
titles
 Maintain these terms to keep them consistent
 Use established terms as headings in the metadata
records of the library catalog/digital database

5. The significance of authority control
 Disambiguate the items with similar or identical
headings
 Different authors can be distinguished from each other
 Two different authors published under the same name
 Collocate materials that logically belong together
but which present themselves differently
 One person published under different names
Help provide accurate and effective service to
users
 Users will get the information they need
 Users won’t get unrelated information or miss any information

6. The example of authority control
Without authority control, the
database will have many headings
from many different resources
Twain, Mark
Twain, mark
Twain, Marek, 1835-1910
Twain, Mark, 1835-1910
Twain, Mark. 1835-1910
Make Tuwen, 1835-1910
…
With authority control, the database
will have only one proper heading
Twain, Mark, 1835-1910

7. Authority record of Mark Twain from LC/NAF
Name used in
Latin resources
Name used in
Chinese resources
Name used in
other
language
resources

8. 2) Authority Control in dPanther

9. dPanther introduction
 Is a Florida International University digital repository
 Hosts digital collections of cultural, historical, scholarly,
educational, and community resources
 Includes rare books, manuscripts, maps, photographs,
and oral histories

10. Metadata fields in dPanther
Title
Resource Type
Physical Description
Language
Identifier
Holding Location
Source Institution
Author/Creator
Publisher
Publication Place
Publication Date
Subject
Geographic Coverage
Coordinates
Abstract
Note
Aggregations
Genre
…

11. Metadata fields that can use authority file
Field Type Authority File
Creator Personal Name
Corporate Name
Conference Name
LC/NAF

12. Authority control in dPanther
 dPanther has already applied authority control,
but can be improved

13. Authority control in dPanther
--dPanther homepage

14. Authority control in dPanther
--dPanther collections example

15. Authority control in dPanther: 1
-- With authority control
Author facets
Collocated all his work under the authorized heading

16. Authority control in dPanther: 2
-- Without authority control
Inconsistent headings – multiple
forms of the same name

17. 3) Name Authority Control in dPanther using
LC/NAF

18. LC/NAF
(The Library of Congress/NACO Authority File)
 Is one of controlled vocabularies currently used in
dPanther
 Is widely used across the world
 Includes different types of names
 Personal names, Corporate names, Conference names, Geographic
names, Uniform titles, Series titles, etc.
 Is created and maintained by the LC and NACO
members

19. Access LC/NAF
 OCLC client
 The OCLC authority file contains records received from the
Library of Congress (LC) and records added by Name Authority
Cooperative Program (NACO) participants.
 VIAF (Virtual International Authority File):
https://viaf.org/
 combines multiple name authority files including LC/NAF into a
single name authority service
 Library of Congress Authorities:
http://authorities.loc.gov/

20. Search LC/NAF : 1
– Search interface of OCLC Client
 names can be searched by: personal names, corporate
names, geographic names, conference names, etc.

21. Search LC/NAF : 2
– Search interface of VIAF
 Can search by all headings or by personal names,
corporate names, geographic names individually

22. Search LC/NAF : 3
– Search interface of LC Authorities
 Search by name authority headings for all types
of names.

23. Read Authority records: personal name

24. Read Authority records: LC authority
record prefixes
 LC assigns authority record control numbers (LCCNs) to all
authority records. The control number consists of an alphabetic
prefix plus eight or ten digits. The alphabetic prefix indicates
which system created the authority record
System Assigned Prefix(es)
British Library nb - for name headings
LC n - for name headings
OCLC no - for name headings
RLIN nr - for name headings

25. Read authority record: Personal name
Authorized heading coded
in 100 or labeled as
personal name heading
Authorized heading coded
in 100 or labeled as
personal name heading

26. Read authority record: corporate name
Authorized corporate nameAuthorized corporate name in
110 field

27. Improve authority control in dPanther -1
Inconsistent with the
authorized heading

28. Improve authority control in dPanther -2
Incorrect
usage of the
heading
Correct type of the heading
But Inconsistent with the
authorized heading

29. Improve authority control in dPanther -3

30. Improve authority control in dPanther -3
Authority records