Authority Tutorial Glossary

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AACR2 acronym for Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd ed., the code used in formulating the names and uniform titles that are used in bibliographic and authority records.

Access point A name, term, code, etc., under which a bibliographic record may be searched and identified. Some access points have authority records associated with them.

Authority control The process by which consistency is maintained in accessing names, subjects, and uniform titles in a library’s catalog.

Authority file A file containing authority records. Unlike bibliographic records, records in an authority file do not usually display to the catalog user, though the cross references and some notes from the authority records do display in the OPAC.

Authority record A record that contains standardized forms for names, subjects, and some titles that are used on bibliographic records, and that provides cross references in catalogs. Authority records contain three basic components: headings, cross references , and notes ; they may also contain additional information.

Authorized heading The standardized, “authoritative” form of a name, subject, or title that is used as an access point in bibliographic records.

Bibliographic record A cataloging record containing information about books, serials, sound recordings, videorecordings, etc., including a physical description of the item, classification number, and access points through which catalog users may search for the item.

Catalog 1. A list of library materials contained in a collection, a library, or a group of libraries, arranged according to some definite plan. Access to the list may be provided in a catalog book, a traditional card file, on microform, or online, electronically. 2. In a wider sense, a list of materials (prepared for a particular purpose (e.g., an exhibition catalog, a sales catalog).

Cataloging record A record containing coded information about materials held by a library or other institution. Cataloging records come in two types: Bibliographic and Authority.

Content designator A code (such as a tag, indicator, or subfield) that identifies the nature of a particular data element in a record.

Control number A unique sequential number supplied by the system to each new authority record when it is entered into the online catalog.

Corporate body An organization or group of persons that is identified by a particular name and that acts, or may act, as an entity. Typical examples of corporate bodies are associations, institutions, business firms, nonprofit enterprises, governments, government agencies, religious bodies, local churches, and conferences.

Cross reference A reference that directs a catalog user from a variant form of a name or subject to the authorized form (this is called a see reference ), or from one authorized form to another (this is called a see also reference ).

Delimiter A special character used in conjunction with a subfield code to introduce each subfield in a variable field where each element, or unit of data, is not necessarily limited to a prescribed size, content, and position in the record. Character may vary in design but typically is a ‡ or $.

Element A word, phrase, or group of characters representing a distinct unit of bibliographic information and forming part of an area of the description.

Field One or more data elements that form a logical unit. In an authority record, for example, one field contains the authorized heading, another contains “see also” references, etc. Typically, each field begins with a start-of-message symbol (►) and ends with a field terminator (¶).

Field terminator A special character that indicates the end of a field. On most screens, it appears as the paragraph mark (¶). Depending on the software used to access the database, field terminators may or may not display.

Fill character A marker, found in certain positions of fixed and variable fields, that usually indicates where a valid character must be entered before the system will accept that field. Some fixed-field elements in LC authority records (GPub, Roman) display fill characters in place of codes, indicating that those elements are not coded.

Fixed field A field in a machine-readable record in which each element, or unit of data, is limited to a prescribed size, content, and position in the record.

Heading A name, word, or phrase placed at the head of a catalog entry to provide an access point. See also Authorized heading.

Indicator A one-digit code that provides information to the computer about a variable field. The presence, meaning, and use of indicators will vary from field to field. Depending on the tag number of the field, either a numeric indicator value or a blank occupies each of the two reserved indicator positions in each field which always follows the tag number after one space.

LCNAF Acronym for the Library of Congress Name Authority File.

LCSH Acronym for the Library of Congress Subject Headings, the authority for standardized subject headings in LC subject authority records.

Leader A group of data elements that appear at the beginning of an authority record. The Leader has 24 character positions and includes codes for record status (new, corrected, etc.), type of record (all authority records are coded z), and encoding level. Some data from the Leader are included in the fixed-field display of an authority record.

Line number The sequential numeric identification assigned by the system to each variable field in a record, appearing directly to the left of the field's tag. Also the sequential numeric identification assigned to each entry in the display of a multiple record search result. Depending on the software used to access the database, line numbers may or may not display.

Machine-readable cataloging MARC information which is arranged in a prescribed format and on a medium, such as magnetic tape, that allows that information to be read by electronic data processing equipment, such as computers.

MARBI Acronym for the MAchine-Readable Bibliographic Information Committee, a committee of the American Library Association (ALA) that reviews changes to MARC format documentation.

MARC An acronym for MAchine-Readable Cataloging.

MARC format A format for communicating machine-readable cataloging and authority records, originally developed by the Library of Congress and used by many online systems, such as OCLC.

NACO Acronym for the Name Authority Cooperative Program, which allows institutions to the Library of Congress authority file.

Name-title entry A heading consisting of the name of a person or corporate body and the title of an item. The title is separated from the name of the person or corporate body by a ‡t.

Notes A group of fields providing information about the heading in the 1XX field of an authority record and/or about its related cross references.

OPAC Acronym for On-line Public Access Catalog.

Reference source Any publication from which authoritative information may be obtained. Not limited to reference works. Reference sources are cited in the 670 and 675 fields of an authority record.

SACO Acronym for the Subject Authority Cooperative Program, through which can submit proposed new subject headings, subject heading changes, and classification numbers to the Library of Congress.

See reference A reference that directs a user from an unauthorized variant form of a heading to the authorized form.

See also reference A reference that directs a user from one authorized heading to another, related authorized heading.

Series 1. A group of separate items related to one another by the fact that each item bears, in addition to its own title proper, a collective title applying to the group as a whole. The individual items may or may not be numbered. 2. Each of two or more volumes of essays, lectures, articles, or other writings, similar in character and issued in sequence (e.g., Lowell 's Among my books, second series). 3. A separately numbered sequence of volumes within a series or serial (e.g., Notes and queries, 1st series, 2nd series, etc.). Series titles are represented by authority records with a number of distinctive features.

SOM Acronym for Start-of-Message symbol. This symbol ( ►) appears at the beginning of each field in an OCLC record.

Subfield A subdivision of a variable field containing data logically identifiable as a discrete unit of that field. A typical personal name field, for example, has a subfield for the name itself, plus (if applicable) subfields for birth and death dates, titles of distinction associated with the name, fuller forms of the name, etc. The subfield “a” at the beginning of a field does not display in many systems.

Subfield code A character, usually lowercase alphabetic or numeric, which identifies the data within a particular subfield.

Tag A three-digit identifier, usually numeric, of a variable field, beginning with 001 and ending with 999.

Tag group A collection of tags, beginning with the same first digit, that store similar kinds of information and share a similar function within a record. When referring to a tag group, the second and third digits are generally replaced with XX. For example, all authority tags in the 4XX group are “see” references.

Title A word, phrase, character, or group of characters, normally appearing in an item, that names the item or the work contained in it.

Uniform title A title used to bring together versions of a work that have appeared under more than one title (such as translations into several languages), or to identify works of a collective nature (such as the collected works of a particular writer).

Variable field A field in a machine-readable authority record that is not limited to a prescribed size, content or position within the record.