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Table of Contents
Authority Control in VuFind
Starting with version 1.1, 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 |
fullrecord | full MARC authority record |
marc_error | errors reported by the SolrMarc import tool |
allfields | content of all human-readable MARC fields to augment searching |
source | source of the authority record (i.e. Library of Congress Name Authority File, Local System, etc.) |
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 |
first_indexed / last_indexed | Index dates used for tracking record changes |
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
There used to be an OCLC API for loading the LC Name Authority File, and VuFind 1.x included a tool for importing records from this API; as of this writing, that service is no longer available, and the FAST names are a preferable data source.
See the OCLC Fast section of the Open Data Sources page for details on importing free authority records from OCLC.
Authority Import Script
VuFind has a separate indexing script that uses SolrMarc to load authority records into the authority index. See 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 Alphabetical Heading Browse takes advantage of authority data. It is also possible to implement Recommendations Modules and/or Custom Autosuggestions to take advantage of authority data, though this work is not yet complete.