Normative data and vocabularies

What are authority data and vocabularies?

National and international normative data and controlled vocabularies are used for the formal and content-related development of resources. As a rule, they are maintained and developed cooperatively.

  • GND – Common Authority File – the DNB, formerly Keyword Authority File (SWD), Personal Authority File (PND) and Common Corporate Body File (GKD)
  • AAT – Art & Architecture Thesaurus – here the German version of the thesaurus from the Getty Resaerch Institute
  • Geonames – for official geographical names
  • Iconclassfor the capture and content development of image content
  • OBG – generic term file – hierarchized collection of object names for cultural history museums
  • TGN – Thesaurus of Geographic Names (Getty) –
  • ULAN – Union List of Artist Names (Getty) – Names, biographies and personal relationships for people and entities
  • CONA -Cultural Objects Name Authority (Getty) - for object description for art, architecture and other cultural heritage objects
  • VIAF – Virtual International Authority File – combines multiple authority files into an authority data service hosted by OCLC
  • Hessian systematics - for inventorying cultural-historical holdings in museums
  • CERL – Consortium of European Research Libraries – Specializing in Europe’s historical books and manuscripts.
Controlled vocabularies are defined word lists, systematics or thesauri with which identical and different objects are designated accordingly.