Integrated Authority File
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The (translated as ''Integrated Authority File'') or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used mainly for documentation in libraries and increasingly also by archives and museums. The GND is managed by the German National Library (; DNB) in cooperation with various regional library networks in German-speaking Europe and other partners. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence. The GND specification provides a hierarchy of high-level entities and sub-classes, useful in library classification, and an approach to unambiguous identification of single elements. It also comprises an
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intended for knowledge representation in the
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, available in the RDF format. The GND became operational in April 2012 and integrates the content of the following authority files, which have since been discontinued: * (PND) (Translation: Name Authority File) * (GKD) (Translation: Corporate Bodies Authority File) * (SWD) (Translation: Subject Headings Authority File) * (DMA-EST) (Translation: Uniform Title File of the German Music Archive) It is referred to by identifiers named ''GND-ID''. At the time of its introduction on 5 April 2012, the GND held 9,493,860 files, including 2,650,000 personalised names. In July 2020 non-individualized files were deleted. In 2022, the GND held 9,370,736 files, including 5,937,788 personalised names. The GND participates in the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) project.


Types of GND high-level entities

There are six main types of GND entities:„Entitätencodierung – Vergaberichtlinien“
(pdf)


References


External links


Information pages about the GND
from the German National Library
Search via OGND
()
Bereitstellung des ersten GND-Grundbestandes
DNB, 19 April 2012
From Authority Control to Linked Authority Data
Presentation given by Reinhold Heuvelmann (German National Library) to the ALA MARC Formats Interest Group, June 2012 {{Authority control Computer-related introductions in 2012 Library cataloging and classification Unique identifiers Creative Commons-licensed databases