Abstract :
The Authority File of the Biblioteca di Cultura Medievale
is an archive of personal name forms and uniform titles (about 34,000
entries of authors’ names and subjects) that have been indexed while
producing a catalog for a substantial specialized bibliographic collection.
It covers the classical and late-antique periods through the humanistic
period, and comprises all literary genres, disciplines, and texts
relevant to the institutional history of the time. Considering the complexity
and multiform nature of the entries registered in the library, and
due to the international character of its use, a large number of analytics
were created for works from the classical period through the sixteenth
century (about 5,300 entries).
The development of the Authority File has been completed thanks to
the automated tools and particularly favorable circumstances that have
enriched it, making it useful both to librarians and students who want to
consult the catalog. The collaboration of BISLAM, for example, besides
ensuring the scientific character of the archive’s content and assisting in
the research of relevant repertories, has helped to distinguish the characteristics
of the respective products and, consequently, the diversity of
methodological approaches, as well as other choices. The choice of theALEPH500 software, a program which effectively and completely supports
the format UNIMARC, has led the Biblioteca not only to discover
and resolve the problems connected with the structure and content of the
archive, mainly through the use of UNIMARC/Authorities, but also to
search for every possible interaction with the bibliographic catalog.
Moreover, the specificity of the proper names and titles selected by us,
in addition to the international profile of our users, has required us to
consider, from the first phases of the Authority File, the rules of national
and international catalogs and other issues concerned with them,
such as the language of the catalog itself, the standard formulation of the
proper names and uniform titles for all cases of ambiguous or pseudoepigraphic
works, and the cross-references between them. [Article copies
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© 2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All
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