We previously obtained our authority control through Blackwell North America and were left high and dry when BNA was no longer able to provide this service. We contacted the various authority control providers to obtain information on their services, had preliminary discussions with representatives of the most promising of them, and then requested estimates. We established our project with history file creation, gap file processing, and optional electronic reports. We continue to use Overnight Authorities and the Notification Service. Our mission is to provide efficient access for our users to all our resources, and our online catalogue is an integral part of this.
Authority control is essential to maintaining a high quality catalogue.
Robert Cook, Head of Cataloging Systems, Saint Mary's University 5. I would say go ahead and do it, even if resources and time are too scarce to undertake all the manual intervention that is desirable to maintain the quality of any authority control system. Imperfect authority control is still far preferable to no authority control. At the beginning of this year, the Library of Congress implemented the long-planned change to the format of control numbers for its authority records. Newly assigned numbers reflect a 4-digit year.