Authority control is a specialized, technical and research area of study and practice. This course is an introduction to a specialized field of study and covers the tools, techniques, and standards of cataloguing authority data. It prepares students to understand the demands of professional authority work, and to obtain the necessary skills in order to evaluate authority control practices, tools and systems.

Upon completion of this course students will:

• Be familiar with international standards and guidelines available for authority data description.
• Understand authority control as a technical service.
• Understand basic concepts and terms related to authority control and authority data description.
• Be able to construct records for authorized access point following RDA.
• Be able to create authority records following the current authority encoding standards, e.g., MARC 21.
• Be able to document the choice of the preferred access points.
• Make use of the tools and ILS available for professional cataloguers, e.g., RDA Toolkit, Koha ILS, etc.

Class sessions will be a combination of lectures, discussion and in class exercises.

Week #1: Introduction to the course. Basic principles and standards. Definitions. Purpose of authority control in the library and information science sector.

Week #2: Choice of access points. Main and added entries. Form of access points (Names: Persons. Families. Corporate bodies. Titles. Geographic names).

Week #3: Choice of access points following AACR2 (Chapter 21). Headings of persons (Chapter 22). Geographic names-Chapter 23). Headings for corporate bodies-Chapter 24). Uniform titles- Chapter 25). References-Chapter 26.

Week #4: RDA (Resource Description and Access). FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records). FRAD (Functional Requirements for Authority Data).

Week #5: Group 1 entities (WEMI). Group 2 entities (PFC). Attributes. FRAD user tasks.

Week #6: Relationships in RDA. Designators. Core relationships between Group 1 and Group 2 entities. Relationships between Group 2 entities. Other relationships.

Week #7: Identifying Group 1 entities-Works. General guidelines on recording works. Chapters 5 and 6. Authorized access points to represent works. Practice in class.

Week #8: Identifying Group 2 entities. General guidelines on recording persons, families and corporate bodies. Authorized access points. Variant access points. Practice in class.

Week #9: Training in RDA Toolkit. Library of Congress-Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Statements (LC-PCC PS). Practice in class.

Week #10: Identifying persons-Chapter 9. Identifying families - Chapter 10. Identifying corporate bodies - Chapter 12. Group 3 entities (Chapters 12-16). Identifying concepts -Chapter 13. Identifying objects - Chapter 14. Identifying events - Chapter 15. Identifying places - Chapter 16. Practice in class.

Week #11: MARC 21 Format for Authority Data. Mandatory fields. Optional fields. UNIMARC Authorities. Mandatory fields. Optional fields. Examples. Practice in class.

Week #12: MARC 21 Authorities – Basic steps and guidelines on SARs (Subject Authority Records). LCAF (Library of Congress Authorities File). LCSH (Library of Congress Subject Headings). Examples. Review 1. Practice in class.

Week #13: NARs (Name Authority Records). LC-Linked Data Service. VIAF (Virtual International Authority File). Examples. Review 2. Practice in class.

• Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd ed., 1988 revision. Chicago: American Library Association.
• Ασλανίδη, Μ., 2017. Περιγραφικά δεδομένα στον 21^ο αιώνα. Αθήνα: Κλειδάριθμος.
• IFLA, 2009. Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records: final report. September 1997. As amended and corrected through February 2009.. [pdf] Διαθέσιμο από: https://www.ifla.org/files/assets/cataloguing/frbr/frbr_2008.pdf
• IFLA, 2013. Functional Requirements for Authority Data: final report December 2008. As amended and corrected through July 2013. [pdf] Διαθέσιμο από:
• LC RDA Core elements, 2015. [pdf] Διαθέσιμο από:
• Library of Congress-Policy and Standards Division, n.d. Descriptive cataloguing manual: Z1: name and series authority records. [pdf] Διαθέσιμο από:
• Library of Congress. Program for Cooperative Cataloging. [web page] Διαθέσιμο από:
  
• MARC 21 Format for Authority Data, 2017. [online] Διαθέσιμο από:
• Πανεπιστήμιο Αιγαίου. Βιβλιοθήκη, 2017. MARC 21 Διάταξη για τα Δεδομένα Επικεφαλίδων. Αναθεώρηση Μαϊου 2017. Μετάφραση από τα αγγλικά Αλίκης Τσουκαλά και Παρασκευής Κοντού [pdf] Διαθέσιμο από:
• RDA Toolkit. [online] Διαθέσιμο από:
• UNIMARC Authorities, 3rd edition (with updates), 2017. [online] Διαθέσιμο από:

Online tools & Resources

Encoding

• MARC Standards. Library of Congress – Network Development and MARC Standards Office: http://www.loc.gov/marc
• UNIMARC Authorities, 3rd edition with updates. IFLA: https://www.ifla.org/publications/unimarc-authorities--3rd-edition--updates

Descriptive Cataloging & Access Points

• RDA Toolkit: http://access.rdatoolkit.org/
• AACR2/LCRI index: https://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/current-lcris
• Library of Congress-Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Statements (LC-PCC PS).

Authorities

• Library of Congress Authorities: http://authorities.loc.gov
• LC Linked Data Service Authorities and Vocabularies: http://id.loc.gov/
• National Library of Greece- Authorities:  https://kopac.nlg.gr/cgi-bin/koha/opac-authorities-home.pl
• Virtual Internation Authority File: https://viaf.org/

Subject headings

• Library of Congress Subject Headings:
• http://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCSH/freelcsh.html
• Library of Congress Subject Headings Manual:
• http://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeSHM/freeshm.html

Educational and Learning Methods

1. Lecture.
2. PowerPoint Presentation.
3. Material:
   1. Electronic service E-class
      1. Posting material upon completion of each lecture
      2. Posting home-assignments upon completion of each lecture

• Posting guidelines related-to-home-assignments.

1. Posting links and Bibliography for further study.
2. Posting exams-related material.

4. InternetandComputerrequirements.
5. Open source software – Integrated Library System-ILS (e.g. Koha).
6. Web tools, resources and sources (e.g. RDA Toolkit, etc.)
7. Theory-Practice Combination. Apply theory into practice. In-class and home assignments
   1. Assigning in class exercises upon completion of each lecture.
   2. Assigning quizzes to test the degree of understanding upon completion of each unit. Answeringquestionsinclass. Discussion.
   3. Assigning home-assignments upon completion of each lecture. Execution of exercises in class. Discussion.

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Students’ evaluation includes the following:

• Final exams grade.
• Keeping a student attendance book.
• Keeping a file of turning in assignments.
• Final grade. 70% exams. 25% assignments. 5% attendance.