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Get started with Authorities: Format and indexes, which provides details on selected topics that catalogers need to identify and verify information in bibliographic and/or authority records via the OCLC® authority file.
- About Authorities: Format and indexes
- Find the scope and audience for Authorities: Format and indexes.
- Authority record format
- Find the fixed field elements, variable fields, and tag groups typically used in LC/NACO name authority records and LC subject authority records.
- Authority records
- Find out how an authority record is defined.
- Authorizations and cataloging capabilities
- Find cataloging authorization levels in order of most basic to highly specialized, how to edit and replace name authority records versus edit records locally, and a summary of the differences between editing name authority records versus locally edited records.
- Available authority files
- Find an overview of the authority files and indexes available in Connexion and WorldShare Record Manager.
- Library of Congress authority files
- Find information about the Library of Congress name and subject authority files, including authority record prefixes and unique characteristics.
- OCLC authority file
- Find information the OCLC authority file, which contains records received from the Library of Congress (LC) and records added by Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO) participants.
- Pattern headings for LC subjects
- Find information about pattern headings, which are representative of particular categories, for Library of Congress subject headings.