Numbers to Identify Entities (ISADNs– International Standard Authority Data Numbers)

The advantages of unique identifiers for the entities described in authority records are outweighed by the costs to manage an international system for assigning and maintaining such unique identifiers. Today’s and tomorrow’s systems perhaps can do without unique identifiers, but the attraction of unique identifiers still persists. This paper provides a personal recommendation to use the existing machine-generated record control numbers from our authority records as an interim measure until we see what future systems need