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Managing Authorities

The Authority Control workbench lets you manage authority linking across your entire organisation. Instead of reviewing authorities one accession at a time, you can see all unresolved and linked entities org-wide, link them in bulk, and combine duplicate variant spellings into a single authority.

Find it under Holdings → Authorities in the sidebar. Anyone signed in can open it; linking, merging and setting aside are archivist actions, and the linking posture below is admin-only.

The workbench layout​

Coverage strip​

The top shows your authority linking coverage at a glance:

  • N% linked to a source, with the count beneath — "412 of 980 distinct access points carry an authority record"
  • Segmented bar — linked / need review / unresolved, with a via LCSH 12 · FAST 7 … breakdown of the sources doing the work
  • "Review N that need attention →" — jumps straight to the queue

Review queue​

Below the coverage strip is the main workbench: a sortable table of every authority in your organisation. Three tabs let you focus on what matters:

  • Needs attention — anything unresolved or awaiting review. Start here.
  • Linked — already carries an authority record
  • All — everything

Below the tabs:

  • Entity type filter — chips for All types, People, Places, Organisations and Subjects, each with a count
  • Search — "Find a name…"
  • Select — checkbox to select multiple rows for bulk actions

Only the hundred most frequent are listed at once — "Showing the 100 most frequent. Use search or type filters to narrow down."

Columns​

The table shows:

ColumnWhat it means
AuthorityThe extracted entity name (or its linked authority label)
TypeEntity type (person, place, organisation, subject)
StatusNeeds review / Unresolved / Approved / Auto-linked / Local / Set aside
In itemsHow many items across the organisation contain this entity

Click any column header to sort. Default sort is by "In items" (most-used first) — so the highest-impact authorities bubble to the top.

Actions per authority​

ActionWhat it does
ViewOpen a search showing every item containing this entity (by URI if already linked; by text label if unresolved)
Link…Open the authority picker to search the external sources, or Make a local authority. Applies the choice to every occurrence of this entity across your catalogue in one click.
ChangeOn an already-linked row, opens the same picker to point it somewhere else
Set asideMark the entity as deliberately not linked (a street address, a date, a reference number) so it leaves your review queue. The text stays in your records — you can still find and link it later.

Bulk actions​

Selecting any row opens a bar showing how many you've picked, with Set aside and Clear. Merge… needs two or more — until then it's disabled, reading "Select two or more variants to merge".

Merging variant spellings​

When you have variant spellings of the same entity (e.g. "Derby County FC", "Derby County F.C.", "Derby County Football Club"), use Merge… to combine them.

Workflow:

  1. Select the 2+ variant rows using the checkboxes.
  2. Click the Merge… button.
  3. A picker opens — "Point all 3 occurrences at one authority." It offers three routes, in order:
    • Use an existing link — if one of your selected variants is already linked, use that
    • Or pick an authority — search the external sources and click Merge here on the right record
    • Or combine as a local authority — type a Canonical name (e.g. "Derby County Football Club") and click Combine
  4. Every occurrence of every selected variant across your entire archive now points at the chosen authority.

Posture settings​

The Settings & how this works zone (collapsed by default) holds How much should we link automatically? — how aggressive the AI is when proposing authorities. Only org admins can change it; the setting in force carries an Active pill.

PostureWhat it doesWhen to use
CautiousOnly auto-links names it's very confident about; everything else waits for you to check. Fewer automatic links, so less chance of a wrong one — but more to review by hand.When precision is critical (e.g. you're building a research archive where wrong links are costly)
Balanced (Recommended)Links the names it's confident about and flags the uncertain ones for you. Skips things that aren't really names — street addresses, dates, reference numbers — so they don't clutter your queue.This is the default. Works well for most archives.
ThoroughFlags everything for review, including addresses and numbers. Nothing is hidden, but your review queue will be long.When you want maximum transparency or are willing to do a lot of manual review

Changes to posture apply to new accessions immediately. To re-resolve existing accessions against a new posture, use the Refresh button on the Authorities tab within each accession.

Local authorities explained​

Local authorities are entities that don't exist in any of the global vocabularies — a local family, a parish group, a community photographer, the village football club. The workbench's own explainer says it plainly: find the name in the list, choose Link…, then Make a local authority, and every occurrence is linked at once. Merge… can create one too, from a set of variants.

Local authorities:

  • Get their own URI within your archive, beginning archivers:local/
  • Are reusable across accessions and visible to your whole organisation
  • Are managed from Manage all local terms, which opens Local Vocabularies under Settings → Data Model

The zone also links straight to Vocabularies & field bindings in Settings → Data Model.

The map​

When the accessions in view contain located places, the workbench draws them on a map — "Where this collection is" — with markers sized by how often each place occurs and coloured linked / needs review / unresolved.

See also​