Supporting Name Authority Control in XML Metadata: A Practical Approach at the University of Tennessee

Abstract

While many different endeavors to support name authority control in Extensible Markup Language (XML) metadata have been explored, none have been accepted as a best practice. For this reason, libraries continue to experiment with the schema, tool, or process that best suits their local authority control needs in XML. This paper discusses current endeavors to support name authority control in XML for digitized collections and demonstrates an innovative manual solution developed and implemented by the University of Tennessee Libraries to achieve this goal. Even though this method for authority control in XML metadata still relies on manual efforts, it effectively reduces time and research work by efficiently setting priorities, identifying critical descriptive areas in the digital transcriptions, and identifying the most appropriate biographical resources to consult. The effectiveness of this approach in improving the rest of the metadata production workflow is evaluated and presented.