How do duplicate authorities occur?
There are several ways these duplicates can be created.
- Editing an existing authority to have the same value as an existing authority
- All fields in the authority are not the same as the original authority and a new one was created.
- There may be some other procedure during a group edit or other action that might have produced a duplicate
How do I clean these up if I choose to?
First identify which duplicate has less references by clicking on "Show records using this authority".
Make a slight change to the value in the authority you would like to remove.
If the field is not part of a field group the change is fairly simple. Just do a group edit to the record and choose the correct authority value. Once changed, return to the authority management edit the one you would like to remove then choose "Show records using this authority" to make sure there are no records associated then delete the duplicate authority.