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 in 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 popular databases.
More generally, authority control is a method of creating and maintaining index terms for bibliographical material in a library catalog, similar to the Dewey Decimal System. The links produced by the authority control template on Wikipedia go to authority control data in worldwide library catalogs. As an example, the Wikipedia authority control information for Alexander Graham Bell looks like this:
?? ISNI is a method for uniquely identifying the public identities of contributors to media content such as books, TV programmes, and newspaper articles. Please take care not to confuse ISNI and ORCID identifiers.
?? ULAN is an online database using a controlled vocabulary currently containing around 293,000 names and other information about artists. Names in ULAN may include given names, pseudonyms, variant spellings, names in multiple languages, and names that have changed over time (e.g., married names).
?? Authority data of people listed in the general catalogue of the University Documentation System of France. Also available from English-speaking catalog (search author, click one book, click author name, take PPN= value of the URL)
?? Central Institute for the Union Catalogue (ICCU: Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico) is an Italian government agency created to build a single catalog of all the libraries in the nation. It manages National Library Service (Servizio bibliotecario nazionale).
?? NLA Trove's People and Organisation view allows the discovery of biographical and other contextual information about people and organisations. Search also available via VIAF.
?? Author citation (botany): standard form (official abbreviation) of a personal name for use in an author citation (only for names of algae, fungi and plants). Links to page at International Plant Names Index (IPNI).
?? Authority data on researchers, academics, etc. The ID range is a subset of the ISNI range. For free text links (for example when mentioning a person on page which is not about them), it is also possible to use {{ORCID}}. Authors—including Wikipedia editors—may obtain an ORCID by signing up at orcid.org/register. Please take care not to confuse ORCID and ISNI identifiers.
?? RKDartists is an online database using a controlled vocabulary currently containing around 200,000+ names and other information about artists. Names in RKDartists may include given names, pseudonyms, variant spellings, names in multiple languages, and names that have changed over time (e.g., married names).
?? SIKART is a biographical dictionary and a database on visual art in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is published online by the Swiss Institute for Art Research (SIAR).
?? BIBSYS is a supplier of library and information systems for all Norwegian university Libraries, the National Library of Norway, college libraries, and a number of research libraries and institutions.
?? An identifying system for scientific authors. The system was introduced in January 2008 by Thomson Reuters. The combined use of the digital object identifier with the ResearcherID allows for a unique association of authors and scientific articles.
?? SciVerse Scopus is a bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles. It covers nearly 19,500 titles from over 5,000 international publishers, of which 16,500 are peer-reviewed journals in the scientific, technical, medical, and social sciences (including arts and humanities).
?? Biographical Directory of the United States Congress is a biographical dictionary of all present and former members of the United States Congress and its predecessor, the Continental Congress. Also included are Delegates from territories and the District of Columbia and Resident Commissioners from the Philippines and Puerto Rico.
?? National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records.
?? KulturNav is a Norwegian cloud-based software service, allowing users to create, manage and distribute name authorities and terminology, focusing on the needs of museums and other cultural heritage institutions. The software is developed by KulturIT ANS and the development project is funded by the Arts Council Norway.
?? Theaterlexikon der Schweiz (TLS) is an encyclopedia about theatre in Switzerland. It was developed by the Institute of Theatre Studies of the University of Berne.
?? Pleiades is a joint project of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and the Ancient World Mapping Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
?? autores.uy is an author's database, that focus on Uruguayan authors. It was created and maintained by the Uruguayan chapter of Creative Commons. It also provides access to digitized works of the authors in public domain.
?? Identifier for a musical work in the B.R.A.H.M.S. (Base Relationnelle d'Articles Hypertextes sur la Musique du 20e Siècle database) database, by the IRCAM
