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In this paper we use a literature review to analyze the authority control and the role of authority data in book and cardcatalogs. Considering the ambiguity in the relation among the entities used as access points in catalogs (persons, corporatebodies, concepts, etc.) and the names by which these entities are known, we discuss authority control and the conceptsrelated to it. Then, we describe book catalogs and card catalogs focusing on their arrangement and access points, and wehighlight the main contributions of Panizzi, Jewett, Cutter, and American Library Association related to authority control. Asconclusions, we point out that current authority records had their functions and elements defined in analogic catalogscontext, especially in card catalogs. The results presented in this paper contribute to understanding of the current authorityrecords and files and of the authority control concept itself, as well as they support the discussion about new descriptiverules, data interchange standards, practices and technologies used in the publication of bibliographic and authority data.

In this paper we use a literature review to analyze authority control in digital catalogs. In order to do that, we start with a briefintroduction to authority control, we contextualize library automation and the rising of digital catalogs from 1960s, and thenwe highlight some developments in the history of digital catalogs, such as the development of MAchine-Readable Cataloging(MARC) formats for bibliographic and authority data. After that, we present the Functional Requirements for Authority Data(FRAD) and the Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data (FRSAD) as a synthesis of the current understandingabout authority control. Finally, we describe the data model used in the current digital catalogs and we point out: thepresence of authority control in the history of Cataloging, the value of FRAD and FRSAD conceptual models, the coverage ofauthority records by the Resource Description and Access (RDA), and the importance of the understanding about authoritycontrol in the current context of Cataloging.