Athletic Archive Name Authority Control: Keep Athlete, Coach, and Team Records Consistent
When a school athletic archive lists a 1987 state champion as “Michael T. Johnson,” a 1992 donor wall credits “Mike Johnson,” and a 2005 hall-of-fame induction program names the same person “M. Johnson,” the institution has not honored one person three times — it has fragmented one person’s recognition into three unconnected entries that no search will reliably link. Authority control is the library-derived practice that prevents this outcome. It assigns each person, organization, or named entity a single preferred form of name and records the variant forms that refer to the same entity — so every record pointing to Mike Johnson, Michael T. Johnson, and M. Johnson resolves to the same recognition profile.
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