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9.5. Merging Authorities

Last Updated 10/20/2025

How to Merge Authority Records

Occasionally you may come across a duplicate authority record in Evergreen.  Like duplicate bibliographic records, these should be merged.  However, while duplicate bibliographic records may differ in some respects and still be merged, authority records must be exact matches in order for you to merge them.

For example, there is an authority record for King, Stephen, 1947- and an authority record for King, Stephen.  Even if you knew that the King, Stephen authority record was for the Stephen King, or linked to bibliographic records of works by the Stephen King, you would not merge them.

You would only merge a duplicate of the King, Stephen, 1947- authority record, as in the example shown below.

Note:  You can only merge authority records in the Manage Authority Records interface.

First, you would perform a search for the authority records in question.  In the following example, you will see there are two authority records for King, Stephen, 1947- (the second having been created specifically for this demonstration):

Select the two records by clicking the checkboxes next to them:

From the Actions for Selected Rows dropdown menu, select Mark for Merge:

You will now see a Row Selected for Merge icon next to the record ID:

From the Actions for Selected Rows dropdown menu, select Merge Marked Records:

In the Merge Authority Records popup window, select the record you wish to be the lead record.  In this example, the lead record will be #142681.  Then click the green Merge Records button.

After clicking Merge Records, you will see that the duplicate authority record is gone:

If the duplicate authority record was linked to any bibliographic records, those bib records would now be updated and linked to the merged authority record, and the number in the Linked Bibs column would have increased to reflect this.