Who Let You in Here: The Importance of Authority Control in Cataloging

Note: This is a guest post by New York Public Radio Archives' Intern for Spring 2022, Brian Dunbar

How many times has this happened to you? You are looking for records of your favorite musician, Jane Smith, a singer-songwriter who reached the height of her career in the early aughts and find an article talking all about her latest work. As you excitedly read through the piece, you are eager to read more news on what she’s been up to lately.  When you finish the article, you click the hyperlink on Jane Smith’s name in the text (the “more on Jane Smith” button at the bottom of the page) and… it brings you to a page about the wrong Jane Smith, an experimental keyboardist from the 1970s. For a fan this may not be the worst mistake in the world, but to somebody being introduced to the artist for the first time they are off to a confusing start.

Authority control uses established bibliographic information to identify individuals or organizations. Basically, authority control uses a well-defined catalog to say that a person is who they are. This ensures that the Jane Smith you are looking for is the correct Jane Smith and not a different musician with the same name. An authority control record includes a distinct spelling that is the "official" heading of the record for that individual, as well as other spellings.  For example, if Jane is also known as "Janey S" in popular culture, when an article or catalog record links to this authority control the record displays Jane Smith as the main heading, and Janey S. as another name identified within the record.

The record also includes a link, usually in the form of a Uniformed Resource Identifier, or URI for short. A URI is a string of characters that links specifically to the name authority record (for example Brian Lehrer’s URI at the Library of Congress is http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n86129990).

Archives use this process when cataloging to keep records organized. They want to ensure that when looking through their collections, everything lines up as it is supposed to. This controlled link also helps as time goes by. For example, if an organization changes its name over time the authority file will connect the old and new name to the record. Finally, the system is also useful for a name that has multiple translations in different languages. When a patron comes into a library or an archive looking for information on Ms. Smith, the archive wants to ensure that their search returns all the results and not only a few.

Authority control has important benefits to linked data models. With linked data more richly detailed connections can be made across several data points. This provides librarians and patrons with greater access to information. The more authority control is implemented the more accurate records are which in turn makes data more easily navigable in a system. Going back to Jane Smith, when somebody clicks on the hyperlink to find out more about her they will now be taken to pages of information about the correct person.