Note: this proposal pre-dates the inclusion of authority functionality in VuFind. It is now outdated but is retained for historical purposes. For more current details, see the authority control page.

We are a Voyager based library with approximately 1.6 million bibliographies. We are very reliant Voyager's Authority Control Index to assist in searching. The authority is LOC and maintained by our staff.

We propose the use of a separate solr index to retain our authority records. This index would be assembled from the marc authority file. This index would be searchable both indirectly and directly. It would return appropriate legal headings based upon search criteria.

We will attempt to adapt the current solrmarc importer to assist in importing the marc authority file. Until Solr 1.3 is released, we will implement this index on another server.

The authority index schematic is not finalized, but here is functional schematic:

<doc>
     <id>control number</id>
     <variant>potential 4XX 5XX field (human input)</variant>
     <heading_type>personal name, corporate name, etc...</heading_type>
     <index_type>author,subject,title</index_type>
     <heading>Legal Heading</heading>
</doc>

Each Authority will receive it's own entry. This main create a large index, but allows for easier maintenance.

• A search through the index for variants will return the appropriate legal headings.
• Multiple identical headings will be only be displayed once.
• Since return results are legal headings in a collection. Facets can be accumulated based upon the legal headings.