Home → Cataloging in NC Cardinal → Authority Records → Importing Authorities

9.4. Importing Authorities

Last Updated 10/20/2025

How to Import Authority Records

There may be times when you need to import a new authority record because it does not already exist in Evergreen.  Before you import an authority record, however, you should make sure that you have performed an exhaustive search for the authority record in Evergreen so that you do not accidentally import a duplicate authority record.  Having said that, given the finicky nature of authority record searching in Evergreen, there may be times when you cannot locate an authority record that does, in fact, exist in Evergreen and end up accidentally importing a duplicate authority record without realizing it.  If this happens, do not fret, as in such circumstances these duplicate authority records can be merged.

You can download authority records from a number of different sources, such as OCLC, Library of Congress, or Homosaurus thesaurus.  Note that NC Cardinal does not have a subscription to OCLC, so unless your own library has a subscription, you will want to get your authority records from free sources like Library of Congress or Homosaurus.  The drawback of these sources is you can only download one authority record at a time, while OCLC lets you download multiple records at once.

However, if you have the program MarcEdit, you can combine multiple authority records into a single .mrc file so you do not have to import each individually and separately into Evergreen (instructions for how to do this can be found further down this page).  It is also highly recommended that you use MarcEdit when downloading authority records from Homosaurus thesaurus (see below section on Homosaurus for further information).

Downloading Authority Records from Library of Congress

To search for and download authority records from the Library of Congress, access the Library of Congress Authorities website here.

Select the type of authority record you are searching for from the first dropdown menu:

The second dropdown menu offers three different options, but most of the time you should be able to just leave it on Term begins with:

Enter the term you are searching for in the Search authority records and other headings field and click the magnifying glass icon to search:

This will bring you to the search results page:

Select the term you are looking for by clicking on the heading:

This will take you to the MARC record for the authorized heading:

Click Download:

This will bring up the Download popup window:

Be sure to select MARC (Unicode/UTF-8):

This will download a .mrc file that you can then import into Evergreen (see the instructions for importing further down this page).

Downloading Authority Records from Homosaurus Thesaurus

To search for and download authority records from the Homosaurus Thesaurus, access the Homosaurus website here.

Homosaurus provides a list of terms you can scroll through, or you can search for specific terms.  To view the list of terms, click V4 Vocabulary.  To search for terms, click V4 Search.

V4 Vocabulary:

V4 Search:

For this example, we will select the first term in the Current Term List:

This will take you to the authority record page:

Scroll down to where you can select a file format to download.  Be sure to select MARC XML:

This will take you to the MARC record in XML format:

This is where you will need MarcEdit.  It has a tool for pulling a record directly from Homosaurus and converting it into MARC.

First, copy the URL for the heading:

In MarcEdit, go to the MarcEditor:

From the Tools dropdown menu, select Generate MARC from URL:

Enter the Homosaurus URL that you copied into the Process URL(s) popup window that appears and click the OK button:

This will generate a MARC authority record:

Then from the File dropdown menu select Compile File into MARC to save the record:

Downloading Authority Records from OCLC

As mentioned above, if your library has a subscription to OCLC (reminder: NC Cardinal does not), you can download authority records from there, and you can download multiple records at once, unlike Library of Congress or Homosaurus.

Once you have logged into OCLC WorldShare with your login credentials, select Metadata:

Then click Record Manager:

This will open the Search interface:

From here you will have several options for searching, but you will first want to make sure that you have Authority Records selected in the Data Type dropdown menu:

And while there are several options to choose from for the Scope, it is recommended that you typically use either LC or LC - Browse:

For this example, we will choose LC - Browse:

Again, under Index, you will have several options to choose from, but for the purposes of this example, we will select Subject Phrase:

Enter the term you wish to search for and click the Search button.  You will be presented with a list of related or similar terms:

Click on the term you want to be taken to a list of related authority records (you may have to scroll through several pages to find the specific term for which you originally searched):

Click on the desired term/s to be taken to the authority record:

To download the authority record, you will first need to send it to an export list.  Do this by clicking Record and selecting Send to and then Export List...:

The Add to Authority Records Export List popup window will appear.  If you have not already previously created an export list, you will need to create a new one by clicking the New List button:

After clicking the New List button, give your export list a name and click the Create and Add to List button:

You will receive a message that the authority record has been added to the export list:

Since you can download multiple authority records at once from OCLC, following these same steps to add any additional authority records you wish to download to your export list.

You can return to your export list by either clicking the link in the message above or by clicking the Export Lists button under the Record Manager sidebar:

From there you will click on the list name to view the contents of the list:

To export the authority records, click the blue Export button and select Send to my computer:

This will download the list as a .dat file, so you will need to convert it into a .mrc file before it can be imported into Evergreen.

You can do this by renaming the file to end with .mrc instead of .dat:

In this example, I will rename it from Export.dat to 20251017_test export file.mrc.

When you see the following popup, click the Yes button:

Now you will see that the file has been changed from .dat to .mrc, and it can now be imported into Evergreen.

Combining Authority Records into a Single File

If you have multiple authority records to import into Evergreen, and you do not want to have to import each one of them separately and individually, you can combine them into a single .mrc file if you have MarcEdit.

From the Tools dropdown menu, select MARC Processing Tools and then MARCJoin:

This will bring up the MARCJoin Utility window:

Next to the Save File: field, click the folder with the green arrow icon:

In the Save File popup window, give a name to this .mrc file and save it.  This will be the destination file where the other merged files are added once joined.

This file will now show up in the Save File: field of the MARCJoin Utility window:

Next click the folder icon next to the File(s) to Join: field:

In the Open File popup window, select all of the .mrc files you wish to join.  You can select multiple files by holding down the Ctrl key while clicking on each file.  Once selected, click the Open button.

All of these files will now show up in the File(s) to Join: field of the MARCJoin Utility window:

Next click the Process button:

You will receive a message telling you that the files have been combined to the destination file you previously created:

Click the OK button and you can now close MarcEdit.

Importing Authority Records into Evergreen

Wherever your authority record/s may come from, if they are in the MARC Authority format, importing authority records into Evergreen is much the same as importing bibliographic records.  You will use the MARC Batch Import/Export interface.  Instructions for importing records are already outlined elsewhere in the Knowledge Book here.

The main difference with authority records will be the settings you choose:

• Record Type = Authority Records
• Match Set = Authority Match
• Merge Profile = Authority Overlay
• Select a Record Source = System Local
• Check boxes according to needs for Non-matching, 901c matching, Best and Single matching

As with bibliographic imports, you must create a queue and select a file to upload.

The following example template demonstrates which settings you will want to use in most cases:

When you need to update an authority record (for example, when a person dies and their death year needs to be added to their authority record), we strongly recommend downloading the official updated authority record from a source like Library of Congress or OCLC and overlaying the outdated authority record using the MARC Batch Import/Export settings above, rather than going in and manually editing the authority record in Evergreen yourself.

Whether you overlay the record or manually edit it, all linked bibliographic records will be updated accordingly, but at this time we still wish to discourage manual editing of authority records wherever possible.