====== Authority Control in VuFind® ======

VuFind® includes an authority control system.  This page provides some details on how it is being used and how its application could be expanded.

===== Authority Index =====

The authority index lives alongside the bib index within VuFind®'s Solr instance to store Authority records.

The field schema is structured as follows:
^ Field ^ Value ^
| id | control number |
| record_format | record format (used to load the appropriate [[development:plugins:record_drivers|record driver]] -- prefixed with "SolrAuth" to create a service alias). // Added in release 5.0; prior to that, all authority records were assumed to be MARC. // |
| fullrecord | full authority record in raw form (usually MARC, but see record_format) |
| marc_error | errors reported by the SolrMarc import tool |
| allfields | content of all human-readable fields in the authority record, used to augment searching |
| source | source of the authority record (i.e. Library of Congress Name Authority File, Local System, etc.) |
| institution | institution controlling authority record; potentially useful for faceting. // Added in release 5.0. // |
| record_type | type of authority record (i.e. Personal Name, Corporate Name, etc. |
| lccn | Library of Congress card number for authority record |
| heading | Primary legal heading for authority record (i.e. 1XX field) |
| use_for | Variant names for authority record (i.e. 4XX fields) |
| see_also | Related authority records (i.e. 5XX fields) |
| scope_note | Scope note |
| heading_keywords / use_for_keywords / see_also_keywords | Copy-fielded versions of heading / use_for / see_also used in full-text searching |
| birth_date / death_date / birth_place / death_place / country / related_place / field_of_activity / occupation / gender / language | Fields for storing data added in RDA to describe people; used primarily for faceting. // Added in release 3.1. // |
| first_indexed / last_indexed | Index dates used for tracking record changes |

The authority schema also supports the [[solr_index_schema#dynamic_field_suffixes|dynamic field suffixes]] _date, _date_mv, _str, _str_mv, _txt, and _txt_mv. Some of VuFind®'s default import configurations take advantages of these suffixes to index some additional facet fields: chronological_facet_str_mv, form_facet_str_mv, general_facet_str_mv and geographic_facet_str_mv.

==== Changelog ====

=== Version 5.0 ===

Changed "allfields" to multi-valued and added institution and record_format fields.

=== Version 3.1 ===

Added birth_date / death_date / birth_place / death_place / country / related_place / field_of_activity / occupation / gender / language fields.

=== Version 1.1 ===

Authority system introduced.

===== Obtaining Authority Records =====

In addition to exporting records from your ILS, you may be able to load them from public sources.

==== Loading OCLC FAST Records ====

See the [[indexing:open_data_sources#oclc_fast|OCLC Fast]] section of the [[indexing:open_data_sources|Open Data Sources]] page for details on importing free authority records from OCLC.

===== Authority Import Script =====

VuFind® has a separate indexing script that uses [[indexing:solrmarc|SolrMarc]] to load authority records into the authority index.  See [[:indexing:marc#importing_authority_records|Importing Authority Records]] for more details.

===== Bibliographic Records =====

Authority records are not currently explicitly referenced inside VuFind®'s bibliographic Solr index -- it is assumed that authority processing is done externally and that bib records contain consistent headings.  It may be worth doing some additional work to store authorized and item-specific forms of headings in the Solr "biblio" index to allow more precise searching.

===== Authority Search =====

Separate search systems have been created to allow author searching and browsing.  VuFind® has a simple Authority module that allows searching of the authority index, and the [[indexing:alphabetical_heading_browse|Alphabetical Heading Browse]] takes advantage of authority data.  The existing [[https://github.com/vufind-org/vufind/blob/v9.0/config/vufind/searches.ini#L379|AuthorityRecommend]] recommendation module offers a simple mechanism for suggesting alternate searches based on authority data. It is also possible to implement additional [[:development:plugins:recommendation_modules|Recommendations Modules]] and/or [[configuration:autocomplete#building_custom_suggestions|Custom Autosuggestions]] to take advantage of authority data.