Authority control : Today and the future(<Special feature>Rethinking bibliographic control)

Abstract

Authority control is important device to achieve collocation function of library catalogs. The purpose of this paper is to review recent topics related to authority control. Firstly, I describe outline of existent rules and practice and point out some problems. Secondly, I review position of authority control in recent trends restructuring bibliographic control, from the viewpoint of bibliographic control policy, next generation OPAC, and new standards (FRBR/FRAD, International Cataloguing Principles, and RDA). In addition, trends on "Identifier" outside the library community and release of authority data to Web world are reviewed.