Virtual International Authority File

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For use of VIAF with Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Authority control and Wikipedia:VIAF/errors.

The Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) is an international authority file. It is a joint project of several national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC).[1]

Virtual International Authority File
VIAF Screenshot 2012
Screenshot 2012
AcronymVIAF
OrganisationOCLC
Introduced6 August 2003 (2003-08-06)
Example106965171
WebsiteTemplate:Official URL

History

Discussion about having a common international authority started in the late 1990s. After a series of failed attempts to come up with a unique common authority file, the new idea was to link existing national authorities. This would present all the benefits of a common file without requiring a large investment of time and expense in the process.[2]

The VIAF concept was introduced at the 2003 World Library and Information Congress, hosted by the International Federation of Library Associations.[3] The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress (LC), the German National Library (DNB) and the OCLC on 6 August 2003.[4][5] The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) joined the project on 5 October 2007.

The project transitioned to being a service of the OCLC on 4 April 2012.[6]

The aim is to link the national authority files (such as the German Name Authority File) to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together. A VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary "see" and "see also" records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data is made available online and are available for research and data exchange and sharing. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) protocol.

The file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata.[7][8]

Christine L. Borgman groups VIAF with the International Standard Name Identifier and ORCID systems, describing all three as "loosely coordinated efforts to standardize name forms".[9] Borgman characterizes all three systems as attempts to solve the problem of author name disambiguation, which has grown in scale as the quantity of data multiplies.[9] She notes that VIAF, unlike the other two systems, is led by libraries, as opposed to individual authors or creators.[9]

VIAF clusters

VIAF's clustering algorithm is run every month. As more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records.[10]

Participating libraries and organizations

English Wikipedia entry name Identifier Native-language name Location Country
Bibliotheca Alexandrina EGAXA Template:Lang-ar Alexandria Egypt
Biblioteca Nacional de Chile BNCHL Template:Lang-es Santiago Chile
Biblioteca Nacional de España BNE Template:Lang-es Madrid Spain
Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal PTBNP Template:Lang-pt Lisbon Portugal
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec B2Q Template:Lang-fr Quebec Canada
Bibliothèque nationale de France BnF Template:Lang-fr Paris France
National Library of Greece ΕΒΕ Template:Lang-el Athens Greece
Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc (BNRM) MRBNR Template:Lang-ar
Template:Lang-fr 		Rabat Morocco
Biografisch Portaal BPN Template:Lang-nl The Hague Netherlands
British Library – London England
Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces Template:Lang-da Copenhagen Denmark
Danish Bibliographic Centre DBC Template:Lang-da Ballerup Denmark
German National Library (DNB) GND Template:Lang-de Frankfurt Germany
International Standard Name Identifier ISNI – London United Kingdom
Israel Museum Hebrew: מוזיאון ישראל Jerusalem Israel
Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico ICCU
SBN 		Template:Lang-it Rome Italy
Lebanese National Library LNL Template:Lang-ar Beirut Lebanon
Library and Archives Canada LAC Template:Lang-fr Ottawa, Ontario Canada
Library of Congress
NACO consortium (Name Authority Cooperative Program) 		LCCN – Washington, D.C. United States
National and University Library in Zagreb NSK Template:Lang-hr Zagreb Croatia
National and University Library of Slovenia Slovene: Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica Ljubljana Slovenia
National Central Library NCL
CYT 		Chinese: 國家圖書館 Taipei Taiwan
National Diet Library NDL Template:Lang-ja Tokyo
Kyoto		 Japan
National Institute of Informatics NII
CiNii 		Template:Lang-ja Tokyo Japan
National Library Board NLB – – Singapore
National Library of Australia NLA – Canberra Australia
National Library of Brazil BLBNB Template:Lang-pt Rio de Janeiro Brazil
National Library of Catalonia BNC Template:Lang-ca Barcelona Spain
National Library of Estonia ERRR Template:Lang-et Tallinn Estonia
National and University Library of Iceland (NULI) UIY Template:Lang-is Reykjavík Iceland
National Library of Ireland N6I Template:Lang-ga Dublin Ireland
National Library of Israel NLI Hebrew: הספרייה הלאומית Jerusalem Israel
National Library of Korea KRNLK Template:Lang-ko Seoul Korea
National Library of Latvia LNB Template:Lang-lv Riga Latvia
National Library of Luxembourg BNL Template:Lang-lb
Template:Lang-fr 		Luxembourg City Luxembourg
National Library of Mexico BNM Template:Lang-es Mexico City Mexico
National Library of the Netherlands NTA Template:Lang-nl The Hague Netherlands
National Library of New Zealand – Wellington New Zealand
National Library of Norway BIBSYS
W2Z 		Template:Lang-no Trondheim Norway
National Library of Poland NLP Template:Lang-pl Warsaw Poland
National Library of Russia NLR Russian: Российская национальная библиотека Saint Petersburg Russia
National Library of Scotland Template:Lang-gd
Scots: Naitional Leebrar o Scotland 		Edinburgh Scotland
National Library of South Africa Template:Lang-af Cape Town
Pretoria		 South Africa
National Library of Sweden SELIBR Template:Lang-sv Stockholm Sweden
National Library of Wales Template:Lang-cy Aberystwyth Wales
National Library of the Czech Republic NKC Template:Lang-cs Prague Czech Republic
National Széchényi Library NSZL Template:Lang-hu Budapest Hungary
Perseus Project PERSEUS – Medford, Massachusetts United States
RERO (Library Network of Western Switzerland) RERO Template:Lang-de
Template:Lang-fr
Template:Lang-it 		Martigny Switzerland
Répertoire International des Sources Musicales RISM – Frankfurt Germany
Système universitaire de documentation SUDOC Template:Lang-fr – France
Syriac Reference Portal SRP – Nashville, Tennessee United States
Swiss National Library SWNL Template:Lang-de
Template:Lang-fr
Template:Lang-it
Romansh: Biblioteca naziunala svizra 		Bern Switzerland
Narodowy Uniwersalny Katalog Centralny, NUKAT [pl] NUKAT Template:Lang-pl – Poland
Union List of Artist Names – Getty Research Institute ULAN
JPG 		– Los Angeles, California United States
United States National Agricultural Library NALT – Beltsville, Maryland United States
United States National Library of Medicine – Bethesda, Maryland United States
Vatican Library BAV Template:Lang-la – Vatican City
Cultuurconnect (Bibnet [nl] and LOCUS) Template:Lang-nl Brussels Belgium
Wikidata WKP – Berlin, Germany International

Libraries added for testing purposes

English Wikipedia entry name Identifier Native-language name Location Country
Lithuanian National Library LIH Template:Lang-lt Vilnius Lithuania
National and University Library of Slovenia / COBISS SIMACOB Slovene: Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, NUK Ljubljana Slovenia

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kelley, Michael; Schwartz, Meredith (2012). "VIAF service transitions to OCLC". Library Journal. Media Source Inc. 137 (8): 16.  
  2. ↑ O'Neill, Edward T. (12 August 2016). "VIAF: Origins". Authority Data on the Web, a Satellite Meeting of the 2016 IFLA World Library and Information Congress. OCLC. Archived from the original (Video presentation) on 13 July 2018.
  3. ↑ Loesch, Martha Fallahay (28 February 2011). "The Virtual International Authority File". Technical Services Quarterly. 28 (2): 255–256. doi:10.1080/07317131.2011.546304. ISSN 0731-7131. S2CID 62694070.
  4. ↑ Morris, Susan R. (September 2003). "Virtual International Authority". Library of Congress Information Bulletin. Library of Congress. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  5. ↑ Agnew, Grace (2008). Digital Rights Management: A Librarian's Guide to Technology and Practise. Chandos Publishing. p. 180. ISBN 978-1-84334-125-3. OCLC 62715356.
  6. ↑ Murphy, Bob (4 April 2012). "Virtual International Authority File service transitions to OCLC; contributing institutions continue to shape direction through VIAF Council" (Press release). OCLC. Dublin, OH.
  7. ↑ Klein, Max; Renspie, Melissa (7 December 2012). "VIAFbot Edits 250,000 Wikipedia Articles to Reciprocate All Links from VIAF into Wikipedia". OCLC.
  8. ↑ Klein, Maximilian; Kyrios, Alex (14 October 2013). "VIAFbot and the Integration of Library Data on Wikipedia". The Code4Lib Journal (22). ISSN 1940-5758.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Borgman 2015, p. 260.
  10. ↑ Hickey, Thomas B.; Toves, Jenny A. (July 2014). "Managing Ambiguity In VIAF". D-Lib Magazine. Corporation for National Research Initiatives. 20 (7/8). doi:10.1045/july2014-hickey.

Sources

External links

Template:Commons category

 
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