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    Authority Priorities

    Translatable
    A priority order of names and subject headings (up to three when a bibliographic record's second indicator is a number 0 through 6) can be configured when you have multiple authority vocabularies defined for your system as identified in the list of vocabularies in your Metadata Configuration (see Configuring Cataloging). This feature needs to be configured by Ex Libris. If you want to implement this capability contact Support.
    The purpose of authority priority is to identify the priority between authority vocabularies for authority control when multiple subject headings and names authority vocabularies are used.
    Local vocabularies always have the highest priority, even if defined otherwise in the priority list. 

    When priorities have been configured for multiple subject headings or names authority vocabularies and users perform an F3 check of authorities in the Metadata Editor, all of the vocabularies defined are displayed, each in a separate tab. You will be able to search for the best matching authority by going through the tabs, choosing the relevant vocabulary and selecting the authority heading in it.

    The linking process automatically searches for the best match according to the priority, see Linking Process with the Authorities - Link BIB Headings Job for Authority Priorities.

    When priorities have been configured for multiple subject headings and names authority vocabularies, you can perform an F3 check of authorities in the MD Editor, for example, and when a heading is not found in the vocabulary of the first, default priority, the system checks the second priority for matches. If a heading is not found in the vocabulary of the second priority, the system checks the third priority for matches. In addition to the F3 functionality, this capability applies to authority control in general.
    Note that for bibliographic records with a second indicator of 7 and $2 specified, the Ex Libris configuration options and behavior of this feature are slightly different for this scenario. For bibliographic records with a second indicator of 7, Ex Libris can configure two priority headings. The vocabulary specified in $2 is considered the third (last) priority except when the Exclude Vocabularies option is configured. When the Exclude Vocabularies option is used:
    • Ex Libris can configure multiple vocabularies (that you define).
    • The explicitly defined first and second priorities are not used.
    • Bibliographic records are linked to authority headings when the value in $2 matches one of the vocabularies configured for Exclude Vocabularies.
    • If the value in $2 does not match any of the vocabularies configured for Exclude Vocabularies, no linking occurs.
    • Only the value in $2 appears as an authority tab in the headings list when an F3 check of authorities is performed. Note that when the Exclude Vocabularies option is not used, tabs for the vocabularies specified in the first and second priority and the vocabulary specified in $2 appear in the headings list.
    This feature supports vocabularies based on the following standards:
    • MARC 21 / KORMARC

    The authority priority configuration may contain a m​​​​ix of authority registry vocabularies.

    Authority priority is not supported for multilingual vocabularies.
    There may be Community Zone Updates Task List considerations associated with this feature. See Creating a MARC21 Bibliographic Record, Browsing Bibliographic Headings, and Working with the Authority Control Task List When Authority Priorities Are Configured for more information.
    Contact Ex Libris to configure the authority priorities for your system.
    The authority priority configuration is only available in production environments.

    Linking Process with the Authorities - Link BIB Headings Job for Authority Priorities

    When authority priorities are configured and the scheduled linking job (Authorities - Link BIB Headings) runs, it looks for headings matches starting with the highest priority vocabulary. If it doesn't find a match, it looks in the next highest priority vocabulary and so on. If it finds a single match, it creates the link, and moves on to the next record to evaluate for linking. This process is slightly different for bibliographic records with a second indicator of 7 (see the explanation above).
    When authority priorities are configured and the system finds a mutli-match for the first priority, it does not go on to the second/next priority to evaluate the bibliographic and authority records for a match. Instead, the multi-match is reported in the Authority Control Task List (see Working with the Authority Control Task List When Authority Priorities Are Configured for more information).

    Enabled Linking Refinements

    A record that is linked to a lower priority vocabulary can be re-evaluated during the Authorities - Link BIB Headings job run to be linked to a higher priority vocabulary. For example, when a record is linked to an LCNAMES authority headings that is a second priority and HKCAN is the first priority and then a matching HKCAN authority is added, on a subsequent run of the Authorities - Link BIB Headings job, the system relinks the record to the HKCAN authority headings. Note that the process for re-evaluating a linked record for a higher priority vocabulary is true for both Names and Subjects authority priority settings.
    The Linking - BIB heading was re-linked to an AUT record with higher priority report in the Authority Control Task List provides additional information regarding relinking when the Authorities - Link BIB Headings job is run. If you want to use this report, you need to enable it in the Authority Control List Type Review code table (Configuration Menu > Resources > General > Authority Control Task List Types). By default, this report type is disabled. See Configuring Authority Control Task List Report Types for more information.

    Working with the Authority Control Task List When Authority Priorities Are Configured

    After the scheduled Authorities - Link BIB Headings job has run, the headings record may be identified as a linked (single match found), no match, or multi-match (multiple matches were found in a vocabulary) record. The no match and multi-match cases appear in the Authority Control Task List for your attention. In addition to these scenarios that appear in the Authority Control Task List, the following additional multi-match cases appear when your system has been configured for authority priorities (configurable only by Ex Libris):
    • Multi-matches found in any of the configured vocabularies and not linked - Since you can have up to three priority vocabularies configured, the headings record can be listed more than once in the Authority Control Task List for each vocabulary in which it is identified as having multiple matches.
    • Multi-matches found in any of the configured vocabularies and linked - In this scenario, multiple matches were found in the higher priority vocabularies, but a single match was found in a lower priority vocabulary and the headings record is linked to the lower priority vocabulary record. Even though there is a link, the purpose of displaying this case in the Authority Control Task List is to give you the opportunity to manually select a better, higher priority vocabulary link from the multi-matches.
    For more information about linking, see Working with Authority Records.
    Also see Using the Authority Control Task List page for more information.
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