The purpose of authority control is to ensure consistency in representing a value - a name of a person, a place name, or a term or code representing a subject - in the elements used as access points in information retrieval. The primary purpose of this study is to produce a framework that will provide a clearly stated and commonly shared understanding of what the subject authority data/record/file aims to provide information about, and the expectation of what such data should achieve in terms of answering user needs.

The third edition of this landmark textbook has been thoroughly updated to incorporate the many developments and changes in metadata and related domains. Authors Marcia Lei Zeng and Jian Qin provide a solid grounding in the variety and interrelationships among different metadata types, offering a comprehensive look at the metadata schemas that exist in the world of library and information science and beyond. Readers will gain knowledge and an understanding of key topics such as: metadata building blocks, from modeling to defining properties, from designing application profiles to implementing value vocabularies, and from specification generating to schema encoding, illustrated with new examples best practices for metadata as linked data, the new functionality brought by implementing the linked data principles, and the importance of knowledge organization systems resource metadata services, quality measurement, and interoperability approaches research data management concepts like the FAIR principles, metadata publishing on the web and the recommendations by the W3C in 2017, related Open Science metadata standards such as Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) version 2, and metadata-enabled reproducibility and replicability of research data standards used in libraries, archives, museums, and other information institutions, plus existing metadata standards’ new versions, such as the EAD 3, LIDO 1.1, MODS 3.7, DC Terms 2020 release coordinating its ISO 15396-2:2019, and Schema.org’s update in responding to the pandemic newer, trending forces that are impacting the metadata domain, including entity management, semantic enrichment for the existing metadata, mashup culture such as enhanced Wikimedia contents, knowledge graphs and related processes, semantic annotations and analysis for unstructured data, and supporting digital humanities (DH) through smart data. Featuring new developments driven by semantic technologies and digital data and information, with an accompanying website and supplementary learning materials, this remains the definitive primer on metadata for students, instructors, faculty, and professionals at all levels of experience.

The first comprehensive exploration of the development and use of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions' (IFLA) newly released model for subject authority data, covering everything from the rationale for creating the model to practical steps for implementing it. FRSAD: Conceptual Modeling of Aboutness explores the full dimensions of the IFLA's Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data model, showing how putting the model to work can ease information sharing across systems, domains, and environments. Written by three leading members of the IFLA working group that developed the model, FRSAD moves from the theoretical foundations of knowledge organization to a complete conceptual overview of the model, to specific working guidelines for its implementation. The book is filled with insights into the factors driving the model's development, as well as numerous illustrative examples of its practical applications in real-world settings. It also focuses on the benefits of using the model when developing knowledge organization systems (KOS) within the library domain and beyond.