Benefits of Authority Control
- Better researching. Authority control helps researchers get a handle on a specific subject with less wasted effort. It enables a catalog to be set up so that, with some applications, typing in a few words of an entry will bring up the already established term or phrase, thus improving accuracy and saving time.
- Makes searching more predictable. It can be used in conjunction with keyword searching using "and" or "not" or "or" or other Boolean operators on a web browser. It increases chances that a given search will return all relevant items.
- Consistency of records.
- Organization and structure of information.
- Efficiency for cataloguers. The process of authority control is not only of great help to researchers searching for a particular subject to study, but it can help cataloguers organize information as well. Cataloguers can use authority records when trying to categorize new items, since they can see which records have already been catalogued and can therefore avoid unnecessary work.
- Maximises library resources.
- Easier to maintain the catalog. It enables cataloguers to detect and correct errors. In some instances, software programs support workers tasked with maintaining the catalog to do ongoing tasks such as automated clean-up. It helps creators and users of metadata.
- Fewer errors. It can help catch errors caused by typos or misspellings which can sometimes accumulate over time, sometimes known as quality drift. For example, machines can catch misspellings such as "Elementary school techers" and "Pumpkilns" which can then be corrected by library staff.
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