Authority control is the practice of creating and maintaining index terms for bibliographic material in a catalog in library and information science. Authority control fulfills two important functions. First, it enables catalogers to disambiguate items with similar or identical headings. For example, two authors who happen to have published under the same name can be distinguished from each other by adding middle initials, birth and/or death (or flourished, if these are unknown) dates, or a descriptive epithet to the heading of one (or both) authors. Second, authority control is used by catalogers to collocate materials that logically belong together, although they present themselves differently. For example, authority records are used to establish uniform titles, which can collocate all versions of a given work together even when they are issued under different titles.

Although theoretically any piece of information on a given book is amenable to authority control, catalogers typically focus on authors and titles. Subject headings fulfill a function similar to authority records, although they are usually considered separately.

Authority records[link]

The most common way of enforcing authority control in a bibliographic catalog is to set up a separate index of authority records, which relates to and governs the headings used in the main catalog. This separate index is often referred to as an "authority file." It contains an indexable record of all decisions made by catalogers in a given library (or -- as is increasingly the case -- cataloguing consortium), which catalogers consult when making, or revising, decisions about headings.

It is to be remembered that the function of authority files is essentially organizational, rather than informational. That is to say, they (ideally) contain a sufficient amount of information to establish a given author or title as unique, while excluding information that, while perhaps interesting to a reader, does not contribute to this goal.

Although practices certainly vary internationally, in the English-speaking world, it is generally the case that a valid authority record must contain:

• A heading
• Any cross references
• Statement(s) of justification

Heading refers to the form of name (or title) that the cataloguer has chosen as the authorized form.

Cross references are other forms of the name (or title) that might appear in the catalog. There are two types of cross-references: see references, which reference forms of the name (or title) that have been deprecated in favor of the authorized form; and see also references, which point to other forms of the name (or title) that are authorized. See also references are most commonly used to point to earlier or later forms of a name (or title).

Statement(s) of justification: In addition to providing a heading and applicable references, a valid authority record should also contain a reference to whatever sources of information the cataloguer used to determine both the authorized and any deprecated forms of the name. This is usually done by citing the title and publication date of the source, the location of the name (or title) on that source, and the form in which it appears on that source.

An example authority record, for author Flann O'Brien, taken from the United States Library of Congress authorities files, is reproduced below. (The original record has been abbreviated somewhat for clarity):

O’Brien, Flann, 1911-1966

Na Gopaleen, Myles, 1911-1966
Knowall, George
Na gCopaleen, Myles, 1911-1966

His At Swim-Two-Birds ... 1939.
His The best of Myles, 1983: CIP t.p. (Myles na Gopaleen (Flann O’Brien))
His Myles away from Dublin, 1985: t.p. (Myles na Gopaleen (Flann O’Brien) selection from the 
column written for ... under the name of George Knowall)
Rhapsody in Stephen’s green, 1994: t.p. (Flann O’Brien (Myles na gCopaleen))

This example contains all the elements of a valid authority record: the first heading is the form of the name that the Library of Congress has chosen to be authoritative. In theory, every record in the catalog that represents a work by this author should have this form of the name as its author heading. What follows immediately below is a set of see references. These forms of the author's name will appear in the catalog, but only as transcriptions, not as headings. If a user queries the catalog under one of these variant forms of the author's name, she would receive the response: "See O’Brien, Flann, 1911-1966." (See also references, which point from one authorized heading to another authorized heading, are exceedingly rare for personal name authority records, although they often appear in name authority records for corporate bodies.) The final four entries in this record constitute the justification for this particular form of the name: it appeared in this form on the 1939 edition of the author's novel At Swim-Two-Birds, whereas the author's other noms de plume appeared on later publications.

Access control[link]

The act of choosing a single authorized heading to represent all forms of a name is often difficult, sometimes arbitrary and on occasion politically sensitive. An alternative is the idea of access control, where variant forms of a name are related without the endorsement of one particular form. See Linda Barnhart's Access Control Records: Prospects and Challenges from the 1996 OCLC conference 'Authority Control in the 21st Century'.

Authority control and cooperative cataloging[link]

Before the advent of digital OPACs and the Internet, the work of creating and maintaining a library's authority files was generally carried out by individual cataloging departments (if it was done at all). This meant that there could be a fair amount of disagreement among libraries over which form of a given name was considered authoritative; so long as a library's catalog was internally consistent, differences between catalogs did not matter greatly.

However, even before the Internet revolutionized the way libraries go about cataloging their materials, catalogers began moving toward the establishment of cooperative consortia, such as OCLC and RLIN in the United States, in which cataloging departments from libraries all over the world contributed their records to, and took their records from, a shared database. This development gave rise to the need for national standards for authority work.

In the United States, the primary organization for maintaining cataloging standards with respect to authority work operates under the aegis of the Library of Congress, and is known as the Name Authority Cooperative Program, or NACO^[1] Authority.

Standards[link]

• ISAAR (CPF) - International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families.^[2] Published by the International Council on Archives^[3]
• MARC standards for authority records in machine-readable format.^[4]
• Metadata Authority Description Schema (MADS), an XML schema for an authority element set that may be used to provide metadata about agents (people, organizations), events, and terms (topics, geographics, genres, etc.).
• Encoded Archival Context, an XML schema for authority records conforming to ISAAR(CPF)

See also[link]

• Universal Authority File (Gemeinsame Normdatei or GND), authority file by the German National Library
• Knowledge Organization Systems
• Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) for representation of thesauri, classification schemes, taxonomies, subject-heading systems, or any other type of structured controlled vocabulary.
• Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), an aggregation of authority files currently focused on personal and corporate names.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Library of Congress authorities records
• A description of authority control services as provided by Backstage Library Works
• A description of authority control services as provided by LTI
• A description of authorities processing services as provided by Marcive

Dr. Myles Munroe
Born	(1954-04-20) April 20, 1954 (age 58) Nassau, Bahamas
Occupation	Pastor, Motivational Speaker
Nationality	Bahamian
Genres	Inspirational / Motivational Speaker
Influences Oral Roberts
Influenced Nations
www.bfmmm.com

Dr. Myles Munroe (born (1954-04-20)April 20, 1954) is the president and founder of the Bahamas Faith Ministries International (BFMI)and Myles Munroe International (MMI), a Christian growth and resource center that includes leadership training institutes, a missions agency, a publishing company, a television network, radio and Web communications, and a church community. He is chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the International Third World Leaders Association and president of the International Leadership Training Institute. He is the author of 23 books and is a motivational speaker.^[1]

Biography[link]

Myles Munroe was born in Nassau, Bahamas in 1954 and has been a lifetime resident of the Bahamas. He has degrees in fine arts, education and theology from Oral Roberts University (1978), a Master’s degree in administration from the University of Tulsa (1980), and he has been awarded a number of honorary doctoral degrees. He has also served as an adjunct professor of the Graduate School of Theology at Oral Roberts University. His wife, Ruth Munroe is copastor with him at BFMI. He has a son Chairo (Myles Jr.) and daughter Charisa and says that his family is his greatest responsibility and his marriage his most sacred trust.

Today, Dr. Munroe is a pastor, teacher, administrator, author and motivational speaker. He travels throughout the world as a speaker addressing governments leaders, businesses, schools/universities and church congregations. He personally addresses over 500,000 people each year on personal and professional development, and he receives hundreds of invitations every year to speak worldwide.^[2] Dr. Munroe has appeared on Benny Hinn's This Is Your Day program, where he spoke about the Kingdom of God.^[3]

Dr. Munroe places a great emphasis on the Kingdom of God and believes that the whole Bible, along with the message of Jesus, revolved around the kingdom and not a religion.^[4] He has said, "My vision, is wrapped up in one statement: I exist to transform followers into leaders. My philosophy is, trapped in every follower is a leader. My belief is, if that person is placed in the right environment, the leader will manifest himself or herself."^[5]

Bibliography[link]

Myles Munroe is the author or coauthor of over 100 books, study guides, and audio tapes currently in print,^[6] and he is a contributing writer for various Bible editions, journals, magazines, and newsletters, such as The Believer’s Topical Bible, The African Cultural Heritage Topical Bible, Charisma Life Christian Magazine, and Ministries Today.

His works cover Christian interpretations of the Kingdom of God as well as guidance on love, sex, family relationships, and finances. His works are written in English, Spanish and Portuguese. His most popular works include:

• Myles Munroe on Relationship
• Pass it On
• Kingdom Principles: Preparing for Kingdom Experience and Expansion
• Rediscovering the Kingdom
• The Most Important Person on Earth
• Understanding Your Potential
• Waiting and Dating
• The Spirit of Leadership
• The Principles and Power of Vision
• Understanding the Purpose and Power of Prayer
• Understanding the Purpose and Power of Woman
• Understanding the Purpose and Power of Men
• God's Big Idea
• Overcoming The Crisis
• Principles and Benefits of Change
• Releasing Your Potential

Awards[link]

In 1998, Dr. Munroe was awarded the Silver Jubilee Award for providing twenty five years of outstanding service to the Bahamas in the category of Religion.

Also in 1998, Myles Munroe was named to the Queen's Birthday Honours 1998, OBE.^[2]

In 2004, he was named the Oral Roberts University Alumnus of the year and has an honorary doctorate from them.

External links[link]

• Bahamas Faith Ministry International home page
• Myles Munroe International home page
• Myles Munroe Official Facebook home page
• Myles Munroe Official Twitter home page