Authority Control for Scientific Data: The Case of Molecular Biology

This paper analyzes the authority control practices in molecular biology using literature review and scenario analysis and makes a comparison with bibliographic authority control. The analysis indicates the absence of conceptual authority control model in molecular bioinformatics. In addition to traditional knowledge organization tools, authority control in molecular biology requires the use of reference sequences and version numbers to identify entities and keep track of entity changes. The identified authority control issues are conceptualized as quality problems caused by four sources. This study can inform librarians and educators of the needs for and approaches to authority control in molecular biology.