-r An Introduction to *Authority c' Control for Archivists Jockie M. Dodey .* I. Was Zimbabwe once &partof the same nation as exacting, and on-going task. Any repository must, the temtory now occupied by Malawi? What was therefore, begin by asking: "Is the value of authority John. 1 Pawl J14s?name beforei'he >was elected Pope? control worth the expense?" The following definitions Why am 1 unable to locate the papers of the novelist will help lay the groundwork for a rationale for the Gordon Ashe? Was UNESCO ever known by another use of authority control and help us begin to answer name? Does the Library of Congress really own no this important question. manuscripts pertaining to the Vietnam War? Any good reference archivist can find the answers Definitions to these questions in a variety of encyclopedias. directories. bibliographies, dictionaries. and finding Awharity ccmtrd provides standardization of aids. It may come as a surprise. however, that the terminology; you might think of it as quality control answers can also be made available through a single for concepts and vocabulary. Avram says simply: source: an archives catalog that has been organized "authority control is a process for insuring using authority control. consistency ... and consists of the following elements: Few people are strangers to authority control hing names ... showing relationships ... concepts, though they may not realize it The YinYand documenting decisions."l As we will see later. terminology of "authority control" comes from the this is accomplished through three basic techniques: library world. but its tenets are used to promote vocabulary control, collocation of related material, comiaency of language in many nonlibrary and establishment of linking relationships among environments. Consider some circumstances in concepts. everyday life in which we puzzle over the ambiguous Libraries have used authority control in card files or synonymous terminology used in information and book catalogs for many years Automation now sources: searching for a particular product in the off en new possibilities for simplifying and expanding telephone book; looking up a recipe in a cookbook's authority control. but the basic concepts are identical index; wondering where a recent study on in both manual and automated environments. photogaphic conservation was filed; or determining In MARC AMC records.2 every name, subject, where the local record store shelves its anthologies and title in an access point field (MARC fields lxx, of Baroque dance music. Imagine how each of these 4xx. 6xx, 7xx. 8xx) is a candidate for authority problems could be alleviated through consistency of control. Online catalogs index these fields for language and a good system of cross-references. as retrieval. so it is this terminology which must be we explore the elements of authority control. made consistent if the catalog is to perform This paper outlines the basic concepts of authority effectively. control, provides a rationale for the use of authority Authaity wak is the process of determining the files in an archives catalog, explains new form of name that will be used in a bibliographic opportunities afforded by automation, and suggests record, determining all necessary and useful cross- authority control applications used in libraries that references, determining relationships of the name to may also be appropriate for archives. other names in the file, and documenting the decisions made. DEFINITIONS AND OBJECTIVES Many archivists may not realize that they already do a great deal of authority work. The detailed Bringing the record descriptions in an archives agency histories and biographical statements that under authority control is a time-consuming. evolve during the process of arranging records and Archival Informatics Technical Report Vol. 2 #2, Summer 1988 5 manuscripts contain most of the information needed bibliographic records and in-house finding aids and to devise authority records Unfortunately. this transferring this information into authority records, information normally is stored in a single MARC archivists can create shared authority files and AMC record, though the agency or organization name thereby avoid considerable duplicative work. In and history may be relevant to many different series addition, they can greatly improve the consistency or collections. and usefulness of each individual archival catalog, Authalty recds are the data sets that record the as Szary has noted.3 decisions made during authority work. As stated above, these data are simply the names and Objectives of the Archives Catalog relationships established, together with documentation of the decisions made. Fig 1 is the authority record To implement an effective authority control for Pope John Paul 11. The established heading system, an archives must first establish the objectives appears on line 2. "Wojtyla. Karol." the Pope's of its catalog What is the catalog intended to secular name, is the first of several crossleferences accomplish? What are the significant relationships (line 3). among the concepts represented in its bibliographic records? Of the voluminous data in collection descriptions. which is most important for retrieval? n 7807.8345 The objectives of a library catalog traditionally John Paul 11, Pope, 1920- have been: Wojtyla, Karol, 1920- to locate a particular work by author or. title, Joannes Paulus 11, Pope, 1920- to locate all works of an author. Juan Pablo 11, Pope, 1920- to locate all editions of a particular work, and Jean Paul I I , Pope, 1920- to locate all works on a particular subject Jan Pawel 11, Pope, 1920- Although these objectives offer a useful point of Giovanni Paolo 11, Pope, 1920- departure, archivists must question whether or not Vo jtyla, Pope, 1920- they are also valid for an archives catalog, in which Gruda, Stanislaw, 1920- provenance often has a more powerful role than Catholic Church. Pope authorship. What types of questions must the catalog (1978- : John Paul I I be able to answer if it is to serve its users Palumbo, C.E. Cuest5ones de effectively? doc. soc. de la iglesia, Is it true, for example, that most researchers want 1982. p. 7 (Juan Pablo 11) dl of the records issued by a particular agency or written on a particular subject? Or are a few random examples usually good enough? Do they most often Figure 1. Authority record for Pope John Paul 11. want a particular "known item." such as the manuscript of Thoreau's On Wolden Pond or Lincoln's earliest penciled draft of the Gettysburg Address? An authority record carries only the data that How important is it to be able to locate all archival applies to a person or organization in the abstract materials in a particular form of material kg. sense. not to any particular printed records, account books, birth certificates. or ships' logs)? Or manuscripts, or other artifacts. That is, an authority those in a particular physical format or medium kg. record is not tied to a bibliographic record, i.a. the daguerreotypes, handmade paper, engravings, or description of a particular record series. such as in cloth)? What about all of the records maintained or a MARC AMC record; rather, it applies to ell housed under the authority of a particular records that include information by or about that government agency, perhaps an agency that has had person or organization. Once the authority record several different names? Might the activities of a for John Paul I1 has been created by one archivist, specific type of agency sometimes be of interest. the authority work need never be repeated by another particularly to those unfamiliar with agency names archivist who has access to the same authority file. and hierarchies? Might certain researchers wish to An authwity #la is simply a group of authority compare all of the versions of a literary work or records arranged in logical order he.. law as they were altered over time, including those alphabetically), and searchable by all established known by a variety of titles? headings and cross-references. In any particular The answers to such questions help to determine repository or network of repositories, the authority the types of data that must be included in the file comprises all of the authority records made by archives catalog. as well as to identify ways in which those repositories. authority control can help make data retrieval more By extracting provenance data from MARC AMC consistent and comprehensive. Although little Archival Informatics Technical Report Vol. 2 #2, Summer 1988 6 research has been done to answer such questions William Gardner," on the other hand, finds the through empirical archivists can instinctively browse display carefully subdivided to distinguish define the most frequent types of research questions this man's works from all others This searcher can they are asked in order to begin analyzing ways to immediately select line 12, and view only the works improve their catalop of the author of interest; this search results in Once the objectives of an archives catalog have perfect precision. Without authority control, neither been determined, the catalog's effectiveness can be researcher could feel confident of dependable results evaluated in terms of its ability to deliver high levels Fig. 3 is the authority record for the novelist John of precision and recall. Perfect precision results in Creasey, who wrote under many pseudonyms and in retrieval only of relevant material. That is, no a variety of literary genres Once this authority irrelevant material is retrieved. For example, a record is added to the catalog, a researcher interested precision failure occurs when ambiguous, nonunique in finding the papers of the pseudonymous "Gordon names or concepts are not rendered unique by Ashe" can easily determine the author's true identity establishing a mutually exclusive name for each. and locate all of the published and unpublished works Perfect red,on the other hand, results in retrieval of Creasey's numerous literary personae (high recall).