SUBJECT AUTHORITY CONTROL IN A UNION CATALOG - PERSPECTIVES FOR A NATIONAL COOPERATIVE PROJECT IN PORTUGAL

In 1989, the existence of an online union catalogue, the National Bibl iographic Database - PORBASE, raised the urgent need for mechanisms of co-operation in the field of subject authority control. A national co -operative project called CLIP (Compatibilizacao de Linguagens de Inde xacao em Portugues) was launched. With CLIP special libraries will ass ume responsibility for the final content of the authority file with re spect to terminology for subject access in different subject areas. Re ference is made to the general situation in Portuguese libraries with respect to the availability and application of subject indexing tools, and also to the work being carried out towards standardization and ha rmonization of procedures in such matters.