The academic context The control and standardization of cataloguing access is a subject that has always been present in the academic libraries' services organization. This control has been apparent in both the cataloguing context and in the setting up of OPAC tools that are coherent and adequate for the users, enabling students and researchers to conduct easy and thorough searches of the bibliographic collection. As Liv Aasa Holm (1999) states, the problem of authority control is more apparent

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... n larger libraries than in those of smaller size as it is easier to "control" the search results in smaller libraries. However the increased use of the net has highlighted the need to improve the quality of the results of bibliographic researches. In the last few years this need has been felt more strongly because of the introduction of important projects involved in the conversion of cards catalogues and for the of retrospective cataloguing onto information mediums. In whatever way these projects have been conducted, through the use of optical scanning or retyping or through the derivation from databases, and also according to the evolution of cataloguing rules and the choice of headings, a need for an intervention in access standardization has been identified. The integration of the acquisition and cataloguing functions, coupled with the cataloguing orders, the chance to involve staff with less specific training such as the function of orders' cataloguing (visible in OPAC) and the incorporation of analytic cataloguing of the miscellaneous works has sharpened this need. The derived cataloguing is by now a habit of many of our libraries, with a retrieval percentage in the humanities field of between 80 and 90 per cent of the researched data. The retrieval comes from a variety of sources, both nationally and internationally, that often have different cataloguing standards which use headings that can vary according to the different standards. The ability to rapidly correct cataloguing access and to standardize important data in a manner that is compatible with the catalogue's structure, is a need strongly felt both in terms of maintaining the catalogues consistency and as a tool to shorten the cataloguing time, thereby raising the overall quality of the catalogues. The authority control, as Guerrini points out (2002, p. 35), must be considered as the first of the ten indicators (parameters) for measuring the catalogue's quality. The user doesn't have to "guess" the right form, but must be capable of using terms well-known to him, where he can rely on an automated system of translation of his search in a more appropriate form. Until recently this kind of need could only be carried out by the checking, cleaning and the posterior merge of the cataloguing access, but the recent diffusion of library automation systems, that allow the configuration of authority databases to be integrated with bibliographic databases, has considerably changed the work's perspective. But this technological development is hindered by the absence of important and already constituted authority archives in the national environment or the abscence of an authoritative centre with specific duties, to which refer to and from which have the possibility of retrieving authority records that are coherent to the national cataloguing codes and with the international standards.