Glossary Term: Authority File Definition: Authority files list the Preferred Term for each concept in a Controlled Vocabulary. In practice, they also may contain variant terms. A Variant Term may be a synonym, an abbreviation, an acronym, a misspelled version of the Preferred Term, or any other term that a resarcher or Search Engine might like to use to find the concept. Authority Files are lists of terms that are used to control the variant names for an entity or the domain value for a particular field. Examples include names for countries, individuals, and organizations. Non-preferred terms may be linked to the preferred versions...generally does not include a deep organization or complex structure. The presentation may be alphabetical or organized by a shallow classification scheme. There may be some limited hierarchy applied in order to allow for simple navigation, particularly when the authority file is being accessed manually or is extremely large... Canadian Heritage Information Network Related Terms: Preferred Term Knowledge Management Glossary Index | Back