Authority control

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

Authority control is 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, it means maintaining links to a set of standard external catalogues.

Authority control practices at Wikisource

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The {{authority control}} template is used on author, portal and book pages to collect authority control data from relevant sources. This template accesses Wikidata via the authority control module.

It should be placed at the end of the page.

List of authority controls

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Below is a list of authority controls which can be used on Wikisource, along with example identifiers and links to the corresponding database entries. Different authority controls are appropriate to different namespaces.

Author authority controls

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Authority control is used mostly within the author namespace and make up the bulk of the available controls.

Authority Wikidata Parameter Example Notes
Virtual International Authority File P214 VIAF 75121530 VIAF combines authority data from a range of around 20 authority files and libraries around the world. It is a very useful 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.

Library of Congress Control Number P244 LCCN n/79/022889 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"
International Standard Name Identifier P213 ISNI 0000 0001 2126 5882 Developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
Open Researcher and Contributor ID P496 ORCID 0000-0002-9126-6845 Unique identifier for content creators (including, but not limited to, scientific and academic authors). See Wikisource:ORCID
Integrated Authority File P227 GND 118529579 German, Austrian and Swiss database.
LIBRIS P906 SELIBR 184709 Swedish database. Records labelled "Person" that are true author authority controls; records labelled "Name" do not distinguish between different people with the same name.
Système universitaire de documentation P269 SUDOC 026842718 French database.
Bibliothèque Nationale de France P268 BNF cb119016075 French national library database.
Biografisch Portaal P651 BPN 59069719 Dutch database.
ResearcherID P1053 RID I-6013-2012 Identifying system for scientific authors.
BIBSYS P1015 BIBSYS x90060933 Norwegian database.
Union List of Artist Names P245 ULAN 500240971 Authority data from the J. Paul Getty Trust.
Historical Dictionary of Switzerland P902 HDS 3554 Swiss database.
Lexicon Istoric Retic P886 LIR 300 Swiss database. Variant of the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
MusicBrainz P434 MBA 78b3e75a-e409-4018-92f8-2ad8b9afede9
National Library of Australia P409 NLA 36582360 Australian database.
National Diet Library P349 NDL 00453065 Japanese database.
National Central Library P1048 NCL 1084237 Taiwanese database.
National Library of the Czech Republic P691 NKC jn19981001510 Czech database.
China Academic Library & Information System P270 CALIS n2004257484 Chinese database.
CiNii P271 CiNii DA01901178 Japanese database for authors of scholarly literature maintained by the National Institute of Informatics.
Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico P396 SBN IT\ICCU\CFIV\008732 Italian database.
China Biographical Database P497 CBDB 0015887 Chinese database.
Léonore P640 Leonore LH/2064/18 French database of members of the Légion d'Honneur.
Digital Library for Dutch Literature P723 DBNL orwe001 Dutch database.
Russian State Library P947 RSL 000083167 Russian database.
Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal P1005 PTBNP 75714 Portuguese database.
Nationale Thesaurus Auteursnamen P1006 NTA 06825878X Dutch database.
Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana P1017 BAV ADV12232726 Vatican library.
National Library of Israel P949 NLI 000038104 Israeli database.
National Library of China P1213 NLC 000167505 Chinese database.
Narodowy Uniwersalny Katalog Centralny P1207 NUKAT n93129655 Polish database.
International Plant Names Index P428 Botanist E.Britton Standard botanical author abbreviation
National Archives and Records Administration P1222 NARAid 1261102 Identifier for a person.

Note: The National Archives and Records Administration no longer supports its previous Archival Research Catalog (ARC). It is currently only maintained for old, incoming links.

Internet Broadway Database P1220 IBDB 87740 American theatrical database.
Internet Speculative Fiction Database P1233 ISFDB 5 Database of speculative fiction authors (i.e. science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc).
Find a Grave P535 Grave 1024 Database of grave locations and information.
Mathematics Genealogy Project P549 MGP 60985 Database of mathematicians and computer scientists
Netherlands Institute for Art History P650 RKD 23481 Dutch database.
Biblioteca Nacional de España P950 BNE XX1720461 Spanish database
National Library of Romania P1003 NLR 000074735 Romanian database.
French National Assembly P1045 Sycomore French database of members of the French National Assembly.
Catholic Hierarchy P1047 CH bertj Database of Catholic bishops.
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress P1157 USCongress Database of all present and former members of the United States Congress and Continental Congress.
Theaterlexikon der Schweiz P1362 TLS Swiss theatrical encyclopedia.
SIKART P781 SIKART Swiss and Liechtenstein visual arts encyclopedia.
KulturNav P1248 KULTURNAV Norwegian database.
Litterra P6130 Littera 11 Galician-Portuguese database.

Work authority controls

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Authority Wikidata Parameter Example Notes
Library of Congress Control Number P1144 LCCNbook 67007868 American database.
Online Computer Library Center P243 OCLC 653572 The template will also create an identical link for WorldCat at the end of the list.
International Standard Book Number P212 ISBN ISBN 978-3-16-148410-0 Uses a Wikimedia search tool at Special:BookSources. The module currently only accesses the 13-digit ISBN and ignores the separate 10-digit property.
National Diet Library P1054 NDLbook Japanese database.
International Standard Serial Number P236 ISSN 0028-0836 Unique identifier for periodicals. Links to a WorldCat page.
Digital object identifier P236 DOI Links to a WorldCat page.
Excellence in Research for Australia P1058 ERA Australian journal directory.
International Standard Music Number P1208 ISMN Unique identifier for printed music.
Open Library P648 OL OL24401731M Database run by the Internet Archive.
Internet Archive P724 ARCHIVE greggshorthandfu00greg
Google Books P675 Google
Europeana P727 Europeana
LibraryThing P1085 LT 111764 Book-based social network. Individual editions are in subdirectories of the main work's URL (e.g. 111764/81952229). Authors are not supported by this property on Wikidata.
Système universitaire de documentation P1025 SUDOCbook French database.
Zeitschriftendatenbank P1042 ZDB German magazine database.
South-West German Library Network P1044 SWB German database.
United States National Library of Medicine P1055 NLM American database of medical journals.
SELIBR P1182 SELIBRbook Swedish database.
Internet Speculative Fiction Database P1235 ISFDBser Speculative fiction series or periodical.
Internet Speculative Fiction Database P1234 ISFDBcon Speculative fiction publication content (e.g. an issue of a magazine or an edition of an anthology)
National Digital Library of India P2185 DLI

Subject authority controls

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Authority Wikidata Parameter Example Notes
Dewey Decimal Classification P1036 Dewey Classification in the Dewey Decimal system.
National Archives and Records Administration P1223 NARAorg 1164181 Identifier for an organisation.

Note: The National Archives and Records Administration's no longer supports its previous Archival Research Catalog (ARC). It is currently only maintained for old, incoming links.

National Archives and Records Administration P1224 NARAgeo 4177390 Identifier for a geographic location.

Note: The National Archives and Records Administration's no longer supports its previous Archival Research Catalog (ARC). It is currently only maintained for old, incoming links.

National Archives and Records Administration P1225 NARAsub 4508288 Identifier for a topical subject.

Note: The National Archives and Records Administration's no longer supports its previous Archival Research Catalog (ARC). It is currently only maintained for old, incoming links.

National Archives and Records Administration P1226 NARAtype 4172800 Identifier for a specific record type.

Note: The National Archives and Records Administration's no longer supports its previous Archival Research Catalog (ARC). It is currently only maintained for old, incoming links.

Internet Speculative Fiction Database P1239 ISFDBpub Speculative fiction publisher.
Lista de Encabezamientos de materia para las Bibliotecas Públicas P920 LEMBP List of Subject Headings for Public Libraries; Spanish database.

General authority controls

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Authority Wikidata Parameter Example Notes
WorldCat P7859 WORLDCATID lccn-no2009165810
viaf-86022071
np-greenwood, edgar
WorldCat is operated by the OCLC and can be linked to by a LCCN or VIAF identifier, along with its own identifiers when no LCCN or VIAF identifier exists. Use of the WORLDCATID parameter will override the automatically generated link.
Freebase P646 Freebase /m/02mjmr Knowledge base.
Internet Movie Database P345 IMDB nm0831290 Mostly of use for screenwriters and other authors, this is also useful for films on Wikisource.

Finding authority control IDs

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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:

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 sister 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.

VIAF data

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Authority control links can be added on Wikisource, which will override information held on Wikidata, but the best practice is to keep all data centrally at Wikidata where it can be used by not only this project but all Wikimedia projects.

The exception is the VIAF link.

The presence of a VIAF link on Wikisource should indicate that the data has been checked and verified by a human being on this project. Uses of {{authority control}} without a VIAF link imply that the data is currently unverified as far as this project is concerned.

The following maintenance tracking categories should show the current state of VIAF links on this project.

If errors are found in the in the VIAF records, they can be reported on Wikipedia, from whence they will be passed on to VIAF themselves.