Authority Archival Control according to DACS

Original Lecture Video

Authority Control is part of the third step in describing creators, focusing on personal, corporate, and geographic names; SH come under authority control also but not focusing on this atm

Document Creator Information

• Traditionally, creator information goes directly in the finding aid (as biography or administrative history)
• But...we can also create a separate record system to manage authority information
• Benefits of separate authority file: can link this information to multiple collections (both within and outside out own repository); relationships among creators can be documented; we can control what form of name is used consistently (and track name variants as well)(last one is what we are focusing on)

What is Authority Control?

• A process for managing name variants for persons, corporate bodies, geographic names and subjects
• In an authority record, which is different from a bibliographic record, the authorized version of a name is selected, and regerences are made from the unauthorized variants of the name to the authorized version

Authortiy Control, AACR2 and DACS

• AACR2 stressed authorship and “blibliographic identities” while DACS stresses creationship
• BUT...the structure and content of the chapters relating to formation of names are very similar
• End result: rarely will the rules for DACS contradict the rules for AACR2 in terms of choice of names

Constructing Authority Records for Creators

• After identifying the creator(s) of the records...
• Record the name of the entity being described in a standardized format (as prescribed in DACS 12-14)
• Record all other forms of the name “that might reasonably be sought be user”
• Describe the entity using the rules found in DACS 10
• Related persons, families and corporate bodies – record authorized names of all entities that “have significant relationship with the entity named in the authority record”; describe the relationship (unless it is already defined in the Admin/BIO history) and record the dates of the existence of the relationship; this goes far beyond what AACR2 requires
• Authority record management – record repository core; record a number that uniquely identifes the authority record, record the rules used to create the authority record, indicate the status of the record (draft, finalized, revised, etc), indicate whether information is partial or full, record date of authority record creation, record information about any sources consulted, record the name of the archivist who compiled this

Page 113-114 of DACS gives a DACS authority record