Authority records for works as knowledge spaces: recording the essential work relationships of the more recent German literature in the Integrated Authority File according to Resource Description and Access (RDA)

• Applicants: Dr. Reinhard Laube; Professorin Dr. Sandra Richter
• Subject Area: Data Management, Data-Intensive Systems, Computer Science Methods in Business Informatics ; German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 424409814

The cooperative project aims at a quantitative and qualitative improvement of authority records. The most important canonized works of German literature from 1700 until today are to be recorded in the Integrated Authority File as a base stock which will allow to considerably enhance the search possibilities for the users, to re-use the data for cataloguing and subject indexing and to optimize automatic clustering techniques. Authority records for works provide a whole package of bibliographic information, a main entry for the various realizations and editions of works and the respective research literature. They are equally relevant for archives, libraries and museums. The potential of RDA for users and science only unfolds fully by including authority records for works in the process. The most important chronicles and manuals of German history of literature for the period from 1700 until today as well as the local authority records for works of Marbach and Weimar will serve as a data set for the project. This main canon of 4369 titles with basic information about their genesis and history and with links to related works is to be recorded in the Integrated Authority File. An electronic encyclopedia of works based on the data of the Integrated Authority File is the modern form of a canon which isn’t normative or prescriptive nowadays but open and dynamic. Numerous possibilities of bibliographic, research and editorial projects as well as for the digital humanities can be imagined subsequently.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)