Authority Control and Digital Commons: Why Bother?

Sherrod 309

Authority control provided by Digital Commons is basic. Other than author names, Digital Commons does not provide much in the way of authority control for other fields, such as faculty advisor/mentor names or department names. Standardizing name fields has several benefits, not least of which is the increased precision of reports that institutions can create to highlight the impact of faculty mentorship activities as well as the scholarship output of departmental entities on campus. Institutions that want to ensure the consistency of names across submissions to their Digital Commons repository, especially for self-submitted submissions, must develop their own methods for maintaining authority control. The presenter, a librarian wearing many hats in her position at Eastern Kentucky University Libraries, will talk about strategies she has developed for streamlining authority control work in EKU Libraries’ Digital Commons repository, Encompass Digital Archive.