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For authority work for NACO and SACO, see links at Authority Work 
For additional guidance for SACO work, see SACO 
 

Online Resources for Authority Work

Subject Headings 
subjhead.htm Subject Headings: SACO, Fiction and genre headings, Form subdivisions, and other general subject related resources

 

Collections of resources:

Authority Tools, Subject and General at other libraries
auttools.html

 

Library of Congress Services
lcservcs.html

 

Map 
& Geographic Resources 
geogres.htm

 

Natural History Reference Sources 
natural.htm

 

MeSH Sites 
Mesh.html

 

Thesauri and Dictionaries 
Thesori.html

Rules and Guidelines for Creating Authority Records

To create new headings, the library must have the appropriate resources in staff and documentation. Resources include:

NACO

Anglo-American Cataloging Rules. Chicago: ALA, 1999- (latest)REQ

Authorities user guide. Dublin, OH: OCLC, 1994- (latest)

LC guidelines supplement to the USMARC Format for Authority data. Washington, D.C. : Library of Congres, Network Development and MARC Standards Office, 1998.

Library of Congress Rule Interpretations. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Cataloging Distribution Service, 1993- (latest) REQ

Memorandum 1 from the Library of Congress: Defining the "catalog" for NACO libraries (OCLC) REQ

Memorandum 2 from the Library of Congress: Descriptive Cataloging Manual Z1 REQ

NACO participant's manual. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Cataloging Distribution Service, 1996. REQ

SACO

Art & architecture thesaurus. New York : Oxford University Press, 1990.

Bratcher, Perry. Music subject headings : compiled from Library of Congress subject headings. Lake Crystal, Minn.: Soldier Creek Press, 1988.

Chan, Lois Mai. Library of Congress subject headings : principles of structure and policies for applications. Washington, D.C.: Cataloging Distribution Service, 1990.

Clack, Doris H. Authority control : its principles, applications, and instructions. Chicago: American Library Association, 1990.

Decisions on geographic names in the United States. Washington, D.C. Dept. of the Interior, 1963-

Free-floating subdivisions : an alphabetical index. Washington, DC: Cataloging Distribution Service, 1989- REQ

Guidelines for authority records and references. (2nd ed., 2001) IFLA. 
http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/garr/garr.pdf

Guidelines on subject access to individual works of fiction, drama, etc. Chicago: American Library Association, 1990.

LC guidelines supplement to the USMARC Format for Authority data. Washington, D.C. : Library of Congres, Network Development and MARC Standards Office, 1998.

Library of Congress Subject Headings. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1975- REQ Latest ed.

Library of Congress Subject Manual: Subject Headings. Washington, DC: Cataloging Distribution Service, Library of Congress, 1984- REQ Latest ed.

Mandatory Data Elements for Internationally SHared Resources Authority Records. (1996) IFLA. 
 

Medical subject headings. Bethesda, Md: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine, 1960-

SEE MeSH sites

Music OCLC Users Group presents the best of MOUG. Austin, Tex: Music OCLC Users Group, 1997.

Period subdivisions under names of places. Washington, DC: Cataloging Distribution Service, Library of Congress, 1994.

Thesaurus for Graphic Materials. Washington, D.C.: Cataloging Distribution Service, Library of Congress, 1995.

USMARC format for authority data : including guidelines for content designation. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Cataloging Distribution Service, 1990-

LC Classification

LC Classification schedules. Washington, DC: Cataloging Distribution Service, Library of Congress, 1994- REQ

Library of Congress Subject Manual: Classification. Washington, DC: Cataloging Distribution Service, Library of Congress, 1995. REQ

The Purpose of Authority Control

* From: Clack, Doris H. Authority control : its principles, applications, and instructions. Chicago: American Library Association, 1990. P. 2.

Hagler and Simmons define authority control as "the name given to the function of discovering all available evidence relative to the naming of a person, body, topic, etc. and then establishing an access poing and cross-references according to some rule." Avram says "authority control is a process for ensuring consistency of headings in a library catalog." Martin defines authority control as "the set of procedures which determines the use of consistent names and terminology in the face of pseudonyms; changing names, changing subject terminology; and changing relationships between and among scholarly disciplines, corporate bodies and governmental agencies.""From Elias and Fair comes this definition: "Authority control is the process by which the same or related names, phrases, or titles are brought together in a prticular place in the catalog." To summarize, authority control is the process of ensuring that every entry - name, uniform title, series, or subject - that is selected as an access point for the public catalog is unique and does not conflict, by being identical, with any other entry that is already in the catalog or that may be included at a later date. A network of references is the frame that holds it all together.

 

Task Group on the Function of the Authority File Final Report : presented to the Standing Committee on Standards of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging. Apr 1, 2003 under Standards at: https://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/

Connexion Authority Work

Submit Record to National Review File and a Respond File are available. On the OCLC CONNEXION toolbar, select HELP; search: NACO review.

Authorities in ODIN

Authorities Maintenance