Integrated Authority File



The Universal Authority File (Gemeinsame Normdatei) or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used mainly for documentation in libraries and archives. The GND is managed by the German National Library (DNB) in cooperation with various library networks. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.

Other authority files are: Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), Library of Congress Authorities (LCNAF), Web NDL Authorities by the National Diet Library (Japan), and LIBRIS by the National Library of Sweden.

Types of GND entities
The Universal Authority File became operational in April 2012 and integrates the content of the following authority files which are discontinued since:
 * Name Authority File (German: Personennamendatei; PND)
 * Corporate Bodies Authority File (German: Gemeinsame Körperschaftsdatei; GKD)
 * Subject Headings Authority File (German: Schlagwortnormdatei; SWD)
 * Uniform Title File of the Deutsches Musikarchiv (German: Einheitssachtitel-Datei des Deutschen Musikarchivs; DMA-EST)

At the time of its introduction (“GND-Grundbestand” from 5 April 2012), the GND holds 9.493.860 files, including 2.650.000 personalized names.

There are six main types of GND entities: