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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 at Dashboard → Authorities (requires admin access).

The workbench layout​

Coverage strip​

The top shows your authority linking coverage at a glance:

  • % linked — the proportion of all entities across your archive that have been linked to an authority
  • Segmented bar — visual breakdown of linked / needs review / unresolved
  • "Review N that need attention" button — jumps straight to the queue

Review queue​

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

  • Needs attention — the model is uncertain about these (low confidence, conflicting candidates, or no good match). Start here.
  • Linked — already verified by humans
  • All — everything

Below the tabs:

  • Entity type filter — narrow to People, Places, Organisations, or Subjects
  • Search — find an authority by name
  • Select — checkbox to select multiple rows for bulk actions

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-resolved / local
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
View itemsOpen a search showing every item containing this entity (linked by URI if already linked; by text label if unresolved)
Link…Open the authority picker to search existing authorities (LCSH, VIAF, FAST, TGN, GeoNames, Wikidata, Getty) or create a new local authority. Applies the choice to every occurrence of this entity across your archive in one click.
Set asideMark the entity as noise (e.g. a street address, a date, a reference number) so it's hidden from the queue but the data is preserved.

Bulk actions​

Select 2 or more rows to enable:

  • Merge… — combine variant spellings into a single authority. Opens a picker where you search for an existing authority, choose one that a variant already links to, or create a new local authority with a canonical name. All selected variants then point at that single authority.
  • Set aside — mark multiple entities as noise in one action.

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. You can:
    • Search for an existing authority — e.g. search "Derby County FC" in FAST to find the canonical record
    • Use an existing link — if one of your selected variants is already linked to an authority, you can choose it
    • Create a new local authority — type a canonical name (e.g. "Derby County Football Club") and the system creates a new local authority with that name
  4. Confirm. 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, top right) controls how aggressive the AI is when proposing authorities:

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 — the village football club, a local museum, an in-house project code. Use Merge… to create a new local authority with a canonical name.

Local authorities:

  • Get their own URI within your archive (archivers://your-org/...)
  • Are reusable across accessions and visible to your whole team
  • Can later be promoted to a global vocabulary if you publish them (e.g. you create a Wikipedia article and update your local entry to link to Wikidata)

See also​