Descriptions, authorities and linked records

This page covers three related ways of recording what you know about the material in a project. A description is the catalogue information for one entry, such as its dates, extent or scope. An authority is a single named person, place, institution or repository that descriptions and analysis can point to, so that the same Edinburgh or the same John Knox is recorded once rather than many times. A linked record ties a library item to an entry in the catalogue or an arrangement.

Describing a catalogue entryCopy Anchor Link

Every level and manuscript in the catalogue ends with a Description. Photographs and other surrogates have one too, which you see when you open a part in Pages and parts or a leaf in an arrangement.

To fill in a field, type in it and move on to the next one. Pangur saves the value when the field loses focus. A field that refers to an authority offers a list of the project's authorities of the right kind, and New… creates an authority from the name you have typed.

Which fields appearCopy Anchor Link

Pangur takes its fields from four standards and shows, as a single list, every field that applies to the thing you are describing.

When two standards ask for the same fact, one field can answer for the others. The repository named once in a repository's ISDIAH description, for example, also serves as the Repository field of ISAD(G) and TEI msDesc for every manuscript below it. A field that is filled this way says Answered by and names the field that supplies it.

Inherited valuesCopy Anchor Link

A value recorded on a level applies to everything below it unless something nearer records a value of its own. The description shows an inherited value with inherited from and the entry it comes from, or with Stated further up the tree. Pangur works inheritance out at the moment you read the description rather than copying the value down, which is why a change at the top shows everywhere below it at once. A field that the standard requires and nobody has filled in is marked required — missing.

The authorities screenCopy Anchor Link

Authorities are the project's list of named people, places, institutions and repositories. Descriptions link to them, and so do the people, places and organisations that analysis finds. You open the list with Authorities… in the catalogue's header, and it lives at /p/<project>/library/authorities.

The screen shows each authority's Label, Kind, Source, URI, Coordinates and Usage, the last being how many descriptions and analysis entities link to it. Chips above the list filter by kind: All, People, Places, Institutions and Repositories. An Unsorted chip appears when there are authorities with no kind, which older data can produce. Search by name… finds authorities whose label contains every word you type, in any order, ignoring words of one letter.

Creating or editing an authorityCopy Anchor Link

1. Choose New…, or Edit… in an authority's row menu.
2. Give the Label, which is required, and choose the Kind: Place, Person, Institution or Repository.
3. If you have one, give a URI, such as a Wikidata, GeoNames, VIAF or Library of Congress address, and for a place or repository its Latitude and Longitude.
4. Choose Create or Save.

An authority with a URI is unique in the project. Pangur refuses a second authority with the same URI and asks you to merge the two instead. Authorities typed by hand without a URI may share a label, since two people can have the same name.

Pangur also creates place authorities on its own when it looks up place names on Wikidata, which it does for analysis and for maps in exhibitions, and the authority's Source says so. The authorities screen itself runs no lookups. If you change the label or URI of an authority that came from Wikidata, its Source becomes manual.

A repository's coordinates matter for photography. Pangur for Mac and the iPhone app use them to suggest the repository where a set of photographs was taken, and a repository without coordinates is never suggested.

Merging two authoritiesCopy Anchor Link

When the same person or place has been recorded twice, merge the two records. Choose Merge into… in the row menu of the one you want to remove, search for the one you want to keep, and choose Merge.

The authority you keep retains its own label and details and takes from the other only what it lacks, such as a URI or coordinates. Every link to the removed authority, whether from a description or from analysis, moves to the one you kept, and the removed authority is deleted. You can only merge into an authority of the same kind, except that an unsorted authority can merge into any kind, and an authority cannot be merged into itself.

Deleting an authorityCopy Anchor Link

Delete… in the row menu removes an authority. The confirmation says how many descriptions and entities use it. Those keep the text of their values but lose the link. If the authority came from a place lookup, the confirmation also warns that a later lookup may add it again and suggests merging it into the right authority instead.

Linked recordsCopy Anchor Link

A linked record ties a library item to a catalogue level, a catalogue manuscript or a node of an arrangement. Use one to say that an item and a record concern the same thing: that a printed edition in your library corresponds to a manuscript in the catalogue, say, or that a secondary article discusses a particular series. An item can be linked to many records and a record to many items. A link changes nothing that Pangur reads, so it does not alter an item's text or a manuscript's copies.

Linked records appear on an item's About tab, on a catalogue level's or manuscript's page, on an arrangement node's page, and on the item's Study › Arrangements tab.

To add one, choose Link existing record… and search. From an item, the search covers the catalogue and arrangements; from a record, it covers library items. Choose a result to link it, and Unlink to remove a link.

The section also lists records that already use the item as a reading source, such as a manuscript whose library item it is or an arrangement node that places it. These are marked Used as a reading source and have no Unlink button, because you change them where they were made.

Following a link takes you to the other record, and Back to previous record returns along the trail you took.

Permissions and other surfacesCopy Anchor Link

In an organisation's project (a feature that is not offered on every account), members with the viewer role can read descriptions and authorities and follow linked records, but cannot change any of them. The linked-records controls are hidden from viewers, while the description and authority controls are shown and the change is refused.

Assistants connected over MCP can list record-link targets and links and add a link (list_record_link_targets, list_library_record_links, link_library_record), but they cannot remove one, and the two listing tools work only in your default project. There are no MCP tools for descriptions or authorities (see MCP tools). The command line has no commands for descriptions, authorities or linked records.