Wikisource:Authority control

Authority control

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This page describes the concept of authority control and how it can be used at Wikisource to link our works, authors and portals to external resources in a consistent and reliable manner.

THIS IS A DRAFT.

Authority control is the the practice of creating and maintaining index terms for bibliographic material in a catalogue, and is particularly useful for assigning unique identifiers to people, works or subjects. When applied to Wikisource, means maintaining links to a set of standard external catalogues.

Authority control practices at Wikisource

The {{authority control}} template is used on author, portal and book pages to collect authority control data from relevant sources.

It should be placed at the end of the page, following the licence and before the categories and interwiki links.

List of authority controls

Below is a list of authority controls which can be used at Wikisource, along with example identifiers and links to the corresponding database entries.

Abbreviation	Name of database	Application	Example ID	Corresponding link	Notes
VIAF	Virtual International Authority File	People and organisations	75121530	http://viaf.org/viaf/75121530	VIAF combines authority data from a range of around 20 authority files and libraries around the world. It is very useful as a starting point when researching authors. Because VIAF is a record aggregator, it is particularly vulnerable to split records when one entity has multiple records from different databases. In this case, use the record with the LCCN and report the split record to VIAF.
PND	Personennamendatei	People	118529579	http://d-nb.info/gnd/118529579	The PND is a database from the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB) of people comprising around 2 million entries.
LCCN	Library of Congress Control Number	People	n79063767	http://lccn.loc.gov/n79022889	Authority data on persons from the United States Library of Congress have a control number of the forms below (alphabetical prefix, followed by a 2- or 4-digit year and a 6-digit serial number). The second format is the format used in Wikisource templates, as the parts are combined in various ways for various purposes. The number is split into the parts with "/" and leading zeroes are removed: "n79063767" → "n/79/637675" "n79022889" → "n/79/228895" "no2010136878" → "no/2010/136878"
		Works	67007868	http://lccn.loc.gov/67007868	Authority data on books and works from the United States Library of Congress have a simple numeric control number
SELIBR	National Library of Sweden	People	184709	http://libris.kb.se/resource/auth/184709	This authority file has some records, labelled "Person" that are true authority controls. Records labelled "Name" do not distinguish between different people with the same name.
NLA	National Library of Australia	People	36582360	http://nla.gov.au/anbd.aut-an36582360
		Works	2888681	http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2888681
ULAN	Union List of Artist Names	People	500240971	http://www.getty.edu/vow/ULANFullDisplay?find=&role=&nation=&subjectid=500240971	Authority data from the J. Paul Getty Trust.
OCLC	Online Computer Library Center	Works	653572	http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/653572	The OCLC provides the WorldCat database (see WORLDCAT)
ARC	Archival Research Catalog	Works	194255	http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=194255	Authority data from the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). See also WS:NARA.
BNF	Bibliothèque Nationale de France	People	cb119016075	http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb119016075	Authority data from the National Library of France. The VIAF data is usually just an 8-digit unique identifier. The "cb" is added and the last character is a check character (how to generate). You can find the full BnF ARK URL at the VIAF processed record: http://viaf.org/processed/BNF|11901607
OL	Open Library	Books	OL24401731M	http://openlibrary.org/books/OL24401731M
LT	Library Thing	Works	111764	http://www.librarything.com/work/111764
		Publications	111764/81952229	http://www.librarything.com/work/111764/81952229	Publications are specific instances of works (editions, etc)
		People	marsdenjohn-1	http://www.librarything.com/author/marsdenjohn-1	Can be a disambiguation page.
IBL	Internet Book List	Works	60835	http://www.iblist.com/book60835.htm
		People	7447	http://www.iblist.com/author7447.htm
ISBN	International Standard Book Number	Books	978-3-16-148410-0	ISBN 978-3-16-148410-0	Uses a Wikisource-based search tool at Special:BookSources
ISSN	International Standard Serial Number	Periodicals	0028-0836	http://www.worldcat.org/issn/0028-0836
ISFDB	Internet Speculative Fiction Database	Works (by title)	1057256	http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1057256	The ISFDB contains nearly 500,000 titles.
		Works (by publication)	366012	http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?366012	A single title can have several publications (different editions, release locations, etc.)
		People	23	http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?23	The ISFDB contains over 70,000 authors
ARCHIVE	Internet Archive	Works	greggshorthandfu00greg	http://archive.org/details/greggshorthandfu00greg	The Internet Archive hosts many high-quality (and low-quality) scans of books, and is a major source of the scanned works we use at Wikisource.
WORLDCAT	Works	WorldCat	Use the OCLC identifier and URL		WorldCat is operated by the OCLC and can be linked to in several ways, for example by ISSN, OCLC, LCCN identifiers.
GKD	Gemeinsame Körperschaftsdatei	Organisations	2019917-X	http://d-nb.info/gnd/235895-5	Authority data on corporations from the German National Library
SWD	Schlagwortnormdatei	Subjects	7725343-7	http://d-nb.info/gnd/7725343-7	Authority data on subjects from the German National Library

Finding authority control IDs

Authority control identification numbers can be found on the respective website associated with the authority controls. For example, searching the Library of Congress catalog is a good way to find a correct LCCN. Some sources provide links to other authority control but many do not.

There are two main sources that can provide more than one authority control ID:

• VIAF
• WorldCat, for works
  • WorldCat Identities, for authors

Of these, VIAF, as an authority control aggregator, will provide the most IDs in one place. WorldCat will often provide, for authors, the LCCN and VIAF numbers and, for works, LCCN and OCLC numbers.

For works sourced from the Internet Archive, some authority controls can be found on a linked website, Open Library. The link to this is the "editable web page" in the line "This book has an editable web page on Open Library" on the Internet Archive. The Open Library page will often list authority control IDs such as LCCN and OCLC as well as its own Open Library ID.

Authority controls are also used with Wikisource's siter projects, Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. It is possible that some authority control IDs have been added to appropriate page on those projects. They can usually be copied to the Wikisource page without alteration.

AddViafData gadget

There is an optional gadget available to make it easier to add authority control data to a page, using data on VIAF. To activate this gadget, go to the gadgets section of your preferences, check the box with the description "Add a toolbox link to select and import a variety of authority control data from VIAF" and save. This will add a link in the toolbox in the sidebar.

When clicked, this will create a specialised search function based on the page being viewed. If the search is not performed automatically, simply click the search button. More than one result may be shown, so it may be necessary to investigate the results to see which, if any, are correct. If the correct result is not found, it may help to alter the search terms (possibly adding or removing middle names or other details) and searching again. If results are still negative, the page may not have any matching authority control IDs registered with VIAF.