Introducing Cedar: A Linked Data Authority Service at the University of Houston Libraries

In 2016, as part of the development of a new digital access and preservation ecosystem, the University of Houston Libraries established Cedar, a local linked data thesaurus. Using SKOS, Cedar includes terms for subjects, individual and organization names, place names, and time periods found in the Libraries’ digital library and electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) collection from the UH institutional repository. While Cedar includes terms from national authority files, it also accommodates locally created terms with emphasis on personal, organization, and place names. Over the last two years, the metadata unit has deployed the software and developed strategies and workflows for term entry and use in our digital production workflows. Additionally, we collaborated with our cataloging unit to leverage this system to perform authority control in traditional MARC cataloging for ETDs in a more efficient way. This presentation will outline the development of the tool focusing on the thesaurus design, the workflow of creating local authority records, the use of the application, as well as lessons learned and future directions.