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1. Introduction
Establishing name authority control represents a key component for usability in digital collections. As the number of digital objects increases, there is a corresponding likelihood of greater inconsistency and problematic search results. Inconsistencies can stem from the changing of a person's name, pseudonyms, entry errors, differences in formatting, similarities in names, or even multiple people with the same name. All of these prove problematic when establishing a name authority control mechanism.
Although a number of organizations provide bodies of name authority records online, these authority files have limited scopes depending on the goals of the organizations. This presents a particular problem for universities that collect and curate works created by members of their communities, many of whom do not have representation within the established authority records. Local bibliographic catalog records, the Library of Congress (LOC) Authorities, the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), and even Wikipedia offer various authorized versions of names; however, many university community members do not have authority records. Other local sources may not prove sufficient, as campus-wide directories and faculty profiles generally rely on an author-submitted version of a name.
One large category of university-produced materials consists of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). The University of North Texas (UNT) was among the first in the USA to require electronic submissions of theses and dissertations (TD), beginning in 1999. A partnership between the UNT Toulouse Graduate School and the UNT Libraries led to the creation of the ETD collection, housed within the UNT Digital Library. Because of the heavy use and impact of this collection, UNT also began a retroactive digitization of TDs from the 1930s onward. Both of these aspects have contributed to the large number of records with uncontrolled names already in the system.
In a random sampling of 200 names in the UNT ETD collection, 61 percent are in the local bibliographic authority file, 28 percent have an authority file in the VIAF database, 26 percent have an authority file in the LOC Name Authority File, and only 0.5 percent have a Wikipedia page (see Table I).
Aside from the lack of established authorities, name variation is a particular concern within the ETD collection. The current, accepted practice involves copying the names of authors, committee members, and chairs...