Template:Authority control/doc

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This is a documentation subpage for Template:Authority control.
It contains usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template is used on 265,000+ pages.
To avoid large-scale disruption and unnecessary server load, any changes to this template should first be tested in its /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user space. The tested changes can then be added to this page in one single edit. Please consider discussing any changes on the talk page before implementing them.

Uses Lua:

Module:Authority control

Description

This metadata template links Wikipedia articles to various library catalogue systems. At the moment, it is used almost exclusively in biographical articles.

Supported authority files

Virtual International Authority File (VIAF)
Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN)
International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI)
Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID)
Integrated Authority File (Gemeinsame Normdatei or GND)
LIBRIS by the National Library of Sweden (SELIBR)
National Library of France (Bibliothèque nationale de France or BNF)
Dutch Biography Portal (Biografisch Portaal or BPN)
ResearcherID (RID)
BIBSYS (BIBSYS)
Union List of Artist Names (ULAN)
MusicBrainz Artist ID (MBA)
National Library of Australia (NLA)

Deprecated

Corporate Bodies Authority File (Gemeinsame Körperschaftsdatei or GKD), now part of GND
Name Authority File (Personennamendatei or PND), now part of GND
Subject Headings Authority File (Schlagwortnormdatei or SWD), now part of GND

Wikidata content is used as fallback for the BNF, BPN, GND, ISNI, LCCN, MBA, ORCID, ULAN, NLA and VIAF identifiers.

Wherever possible, the template also generates a link to WorldCat Identities, using the LCCN variable. (It will shortly be possible to link using VIAF values—this is being tested by OCLC and will be activated in the template as soon as it goes live.)

Position

As a metadata template, the Authority control template should be placed after the external links section and navigation templates, right before the Persondata template.

Usage

{{Authority control |VIAF=xxxxxx |LCCN=n/xx/xxxxxx |ORCID=xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx |GND=xxxxxx |SELIBR=xxxxxx |BNF=xxxxxx |BPN=xxxxx |RID=xxxxx |BIBSYS=xxxxx |ULAN=xxxxx |MBA=xxxxxx |NLA=xxxxxxx}}

Blank: {{Authority control |VIAF= |LCCN= |ORCID= |GND= |SELIBR= |BNF= |BPN= |RID= |BIBSYS= |ULAN= |MBA= |NLA=}}

The following data sources are accepted

Parameter	Scope	Name	Search	Remarks
VIAF	People	Virtual International Authority File	[1]	International authority data from the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC)
LCCN	People	Library of Congress Control Number	[2]	See Wikipedia:Authority control#LCCN for formatting instructions
ISNI	People	International Standard Name Identifier	[3] [4]	ISNI is a method for uniquely identifying the public identities of contributors to media content such as books, TV programmes, and newspaper articles.
ORCID	People	ORCID	[5]	Authority data on researchers, academics, etc. The ID range has been defined as a subset of the forthcoming ISNI range. For free text links, it is also possible to use {{ORCID}}. Authors—including Wikipedia editors—may obtain an ORCID by signing up at orcid.org.
GND	All	Integrated Authority File (Gemeinsame Normdatei)	[6] [7]	Authority data on people, corporations and subjects from the German National Library
SELIBR	People	LIBRIS	[8]	Authority data from the National Library of Sweden
BNF	People	Bibliothèque nationale de France	[9] (French)	Authority data of people listed in the general catalogue of the National Library of France
BPN	People	Dutch Biography Portal (Biografisch Portaal)	[10]	Dutch project with material for 40,000 digitized biographies, including former colonies of the Netherlands.
RID	People	ResearcherID	[11]	An identifying system for scientific authors. The system was introduced in January 2008 by Thomson Reuters. The combined use of the Digital Object Identifier with the ResearcherID allows for a unique association of authors and scientific articles.
BIBSYS	People	BIBSYS	[12]	BIBSYS is a supplier of library and information systems for all Norwegian university Libraries, the National Library of Norway, college libraries, and a number of research libraries and institutions.
ULAN	Artists	Union List of Artist Names	[13]	ULAN is an online database using a controlled vocabulary currently containing around 293,000 names and other information about artists. Names in ULAN may include given names, pseudonyms, variant spellings, names in multiple languages, and names that have changed over time (e.g., married names).
MBA	Artists	MusicBrainz Artist ID	[14]	MusicBrainz is an open music encyclopedia that collects music metadata and makes it available to the public.
NLA	People or groups	National Library of Australia	[15]	NLA Trove’s People and Organisation view allows the discovery of biographical and other contextual information about people and organisations. Search also available via VIAF.

The following data sources are deprecated

and will cause articles to be added to hidden tracking sub-categories of Category:Wikipedia articles with authority control information:

Examples

{{Authority control |VIAF=59263727 |LCCN=n/79/113947 |ISNI=0000 0000 8138 6064 |GND=119408643 |BNF=13746617f |MBA=9dd93d09-24b4-41f1-a48b-ef48b07499c3 }} – for Alexander Graham Bell produces: Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 315: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).

{{Authority control |VIAF=66861474 |LCCN=n/87/142671 |ISNI=0000 0001 0911 2808 |GND=117421863 }} – for Harry Forbes Witherby produces:Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 315: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).

Wikidata

The template can get its information from Wikidata:

!Parameter	Type	Property ID
VIAF	VIAF	p214
LCCN	LCCN	p244
ISNI	ISNI	p213
ORCID	ORCID	p496
GND	GND	p227
SELIBR	LIBRIS	p906
BNF	BNF	p268
BPN	BPN	p651
ULAN	ULAN	p245
MBA	MBID	p434
NLA	NLA	p409

The MusicBrainz Artist ID (MBID) is currently restricted to items that have occupation set to either:

or are an instance of either

band or
rock band.

If none of these is applicable, it can be forced with: {{authority control|MBA={{#Property:P434}}}} which for The Beatles would produce: Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 315: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). Note that for The beatles {{authority control}} would work out of the box already.

RID (ResearcherID) and BIBSYS do not currently have properties.

Microformat

The template wraps each UID value with the HTML markup: <span class="uid">...</span>, which enables the first-found value to be included in an hCard microformat. For that reason, VIAF, where present, is emitted first.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData documentation for this template used by VisualEditor and other tools.

Authority control

<templatedata> {

       "description": "A template to link Wikipedia articles to various library catalogue systems",
       "params": {
               "VIAF": {
                       "label": "VIAF",
                       "description": "International authority data from the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC)",
                       "type": "number"
               },
               "GND": {
                       "label": "GND",
                       "description": "Authority data on people, corporations and subjects from the German National Library",
                       "type": "string",
                       "aliases": ["PND"]
               },
               "LCCN": {
                       "label": "LCCN",
                       "description": "Library of Congress Control Number.  See Wikipedia:Authority control#LCCN for formatting instructions",
                       "type": "number"
               },
               "ISNI": {
                       "label": "ISNI",
                       "description": "ISNI is a method for uniquely identifying the public identities of contributors to media content such as books, TV programmes, and newspaper articles",
                       "type": "string"
               },
               "SELIBR": {
                       "label": "SELIBR",
                       "description": "Authority data from the National Library of Sweden",
                       "type": "string"
               },
               "ORCID": {
                       "label": "ORCID",
                       "description": "Authority data on researchers, academics, etc. The ID range has been defined as a subset of the forthcoming ISNI range",
                       "type": "string"
               },
               "BNF": {
                       "label": "BNF",
                       "description": "Authority data of people listed in the general catalogue of the National Library of France",
                       "type": "string"
               },
               "BPN": {
                       "label": "BPN",
                       "description": "Dutch project with material for 40,000 digitized biographies, including former colonies of the Netherlands",
                       "type": "number"
               },
               "RID": {
                       "label": "RID",
                       "description": "An identifying system for scientific authors. The system was introduced in January 2008 by Thomson Reuters. The combined use of the Digital Object Identifier with the ResearcherID allows for a unique association of authors and scientific articles",
                       "type": "string"
               },
               "BIBSYS": {
                       "label": "BIBSYS",
                       "description": "BIBSYS is a supplier of library and information systems for all Norwegian university Libraries, the National Library of Norway, college libraries, and a number of research libraries and institutions",
                       "type": "string"
               },
               "ULAN": {
                       "label": "ULAN",
                       "description": "ULAN is an online database using a controlled vocabulary currently containing around 293,000 names and other information about artists",
                       "type": "string"
               },
               "MBA": {
                       "label": "MBA",
                       "description": " MusicBrainz is an open music encyclopedia that collects music metadata and makes it available to the public. ",
                       "type": "string"
               },
               "NLA": {
                       "label": "NLA",
                       "description": "Authority control number issued by the National Library of Australia. ",
                       "type": "string"
               }
       }

} </templatedata>

External links

Maintenance reports