Authority Control:

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Authority Control

• Where Its Been and Where Its Going
• Arlene G. Taylor
• November 1, 1999

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(c) 1999 Arlene G. Taylor
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Where Its Been - 1980s

• 1979 - reasons for no automated authority control
• high cost
• librarians only remotely interested
• 1982 - vendors - what control?
• 1983 - vendors - heres what were developing

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Where Its Been - 1980s (cont.)

• 1985 - authority and bibliographic files
• non-integrated
• partially integrated
• wholly integrated
• 1989 - research review
• major concern - amount of disk space
• related concern - slow response time

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Where Its Been - 1980s (cont.)

• Research questions
• How much authority control needed?
• Really necessary to have unique access points for
  names?
• What kind of references needed?
• Could works be under authority control?
• Could subject heading authority control be
  automated?
• Local authority files necessary?

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Where Its Been - 1990s

• Technology problems resolved
• New research questions
• effect of authority control or lack of it on
  retrieval
• matching algorithms for personal names
• matching algorithms for corporate names
• authority control of works
• cost of authority work

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Where Its Been - 1990s (cont.)

• New research questions (cont.)
• subject authority control
• content of headings
• subject searching
• user understanding of subject strings
• form/genre access
• retrospective application of new subject headings
• Development of WWW, browsers, search engines

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Where Its Going

• Apparently not to a drastically different file
  design!

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Multiple Names for the Same Person
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Where Its Going (cont.)

• International access control
• 1961 Paris Principles
• Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC)
• International authority file
• linked via record id numbers
• Z39.50 protocols
• UNIMARC authority records

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Where Its Going (cont.)

• Subject access to Internet resources
• SAC Subcommittee (metadata subjects) recommends
• simple and easy to apply and comprehend
• intuitive
• scalable for implementation from the simplest to
  the most sophisticated
• logical
• appropriate to the specific subject domain of
  implementation

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Where Its Going (cont.)

• Subject access to Internet resources (cont.)
• WorldCat Records in Comparison with LCSH
  Authority Records
• 3 total subject string match
• 26 used by LC, but not established because of
  free-floating subdivisions, geographic
  subdivisions, etc.
• 71 not used by LC and not established

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Where Its Going (cont.)

• Subject access to Internet materials (cont.)
• FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology)
• based on LCSH
• designed to be used in online environments by
  people with minimal training and experience
• still a research project hope to implement in
  CORC

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Where Its Going (cont.)

• Subject access to Internet materials (cont.)
• FAST (cont.)
• Eight facets
• Topical
• Geographic
• Form
• Period
• Personal names
• Corporate names
• Conference/Meeting names
• Uniform titles

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Subject access to Internet materials (cont.)
FAST theoretical precision problem
LCSH FAST
Gold mines and mining z California
Silver mines and mining z Colorado Gold
mines and mining Silver mines and
mining California Colorado
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Subject access to Internet materials (cont.)

• FAST rules (in trial)
• Topical facet to consist of LC main topical
  headings, topical subdivisions, period
  subdivisions that have topical aspects
• Geographic facet to establish names in indirect
  order Massachusetts--Worcester, not Worcester
  (Mass.)
• Form facet to be the subdivisions now being coded
  v
• Chronological facet to reflect the actual time
  period coverage for the resource

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Where Its Going (cont.)

• Rule of 3
• Authority control of names on the Internet
• utility

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Questions? Comments?
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