The text of this section is adapted from the “Introduction to the authority format” on the MARC 21 web page:

http://www.loc.gov/marc/authority/ecadhome.html

and from the Special Libraries Cataloguing web page:

http://www.slc.bc.ca/cheats/auth.htm

The purpose of authority records, dating from the time of card files, was to record the preferred form of a heading (name, subject, uniform title), and to record cross references to that form from other possible forms.

The term name refers to:

• Personal names (X00 fields).
• Corporate names (X10 fields).
• Meeting names (X11 fields).
• Names of jurisdictions (X51 fields).
• Uniform titles (X30 fields).
• Name/title combinations.

The term subject refers to:

• Topical terms (X50 fields).
• Geographic names (X51 fields).
• Names with subject subdivisions.
• Terms and names used as subject subdivisions.

Titles (except for uniform titles), publishers and notes are not considered authorities as they are transcribed as they appear in the work and not according to authorized forms or conventions. They cannot therefore be maintained through Authority Control. However, Web enquiries can still be limited by title. This provides a similar search capability to an authority search, but without the linking options made available through a true authorities search (as for example, in an author search or a subject search).

An authority can also contain references to other authorities such as non preferred terms (see from) and see also references, and can contain notes.