Help:Authority control - Wikipedia Help:Authority control From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Wikipedia help page about authority control For editor information, see Wikipedia:Authority control. Wikipedia information page This is an information page. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, but rather intends to describe some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting. Shortcut H:AC ‹See TfM› Readers' FAQ About Wikipedia Administration FAQs Authority control Books Categories Censorship Copyright Disambiguation Images and multimedia ISBN Microformats Mobile access Offline access Navigation Other languages Page names Portals Searching Student help Researching with Wikipedia Citing Wikipedia Readers' glossary Readers' index Reader's guide to Wikipedia v t e Authority control is a way of associating a unique identifier to articles on Wikipedia. This is useful to disambiguate different items with similar or identical headings, as well as establish a single standard title for an item that is commonly known by two or more titles. When used, authority control data links can be found near the bottom of Wikipedia pages, linking to bibliographical records on worldwide library catalogs. Authority control is often used on biographical articles because it is quite common for more than one person to share the same name. It is commonly used in other subject material, as well. Authority control enables researchers to search more easily for pertinent information on the subject of an article, without needing to disambiguate the subject manually. For example, authority control is used on music articles so that the information in the article can be easily cross-referenced with the popular MusicBrainz database. This enables many media applications to display information about an artist from the relevant Wikipedia article when one of their songs is played. More generally, authority control is a method of creating and maintaining index terms for bibliographical material in a library catalogue. The links produced by the authority control template on Wikipedia go to authority control data in worldwide library catalogues. As an example, the Wikipedia authority control information for Alexander Graham Bell looks like this: Authority control GND: 119408643 ISNI: 0000 0000 8138 6064 LCCN: n79113947 VIAF: 59263727 WorldCat Identities (via VIAF): 59263727 The abbreviations in the box represent the following: Virtual International Authority File (VIAF); Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN); Standard Name Identifier (ISNI); and Integrated Authority File (GND), Gemeinsame Normdatei in German. WorldCat is a global cooperative union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories. Supported files Main page: Module:Authority control Supported authority files on the English Wikipedia include, among others: Integrated Authority File (Gemeinsame Normdatei or GND) Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) LIBRIS by the National Library of Sweden (SELIBR) Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) Outdated: Name Authority File (Personennamendatei or PND), now part of GND Outdated: Corporate Bodies Authority File (Gemeinsame Körperschaftsdatei or GKD), now part of GND Outdated: Subject Headings Authority File (Schlagwortnormdatei or SWD), now part of GND Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Authority_control&oldid=961925006" Categories: Wikipedia information pages Reader help Hidden categories: Wikipedia semi-protected project pages Help pages with short description Miscellaneous pages with GND identifiers Miscellaneous pages with ISNI identifiers Miscellaneous pages with LCCN identifiers Miscellaneous pages with VIAF identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Help page Talk Variants Views Read View source View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikidata Languages Afrikaans Asturianu Bân-lâm-gú भोजपुरी Deutsch Español Euskara Français Galego 客家語/Hak-kâ-ngî हिन्दी Ilokano Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית മലയാളം मराठी Bahasa Melayu Mìng-dĕ̤ng-ngṳ̄ 日本語 Norsk bokmål Polski Português Română Scots සිංහල Simple English سنڌي Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски தமிழ் ไทย Vèneto 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 11 June 2020, at 04:06 (UTC). 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