Names and Identities

Names and Identities Karen Smith-Yoshimura Thomas Hickey 2009 RLG Partnership Annual Meeting Boston, MA June 1-2, 2009

Names touch everything…. Cartographers Scientists Authors Pseudonyms Actors Editors Institutions Publishers Politicians Historical figures Families Inventors Musicians Animals Translators Associations Government agencies Corporations Artists Correspondents Fictional characters Directors Plant discoverers Illustrators Architects Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 2 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Names can be ambiguous… “John Adams” … the US president? … the US composer? … the British mathematician & astronomer? … the British nuclear physicist? … or someone else? Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 3 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 4 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Names depend on context… US: Chiang Kai-shek France, Germany: Jiang Jieshi China, Japan: 蒋介石蔣中正 Arabic-speaking countries: ‫ﺷﻴﺎﻧﺞ آﺎي ﺷﻴﻚ‬ Tamil: சங் ைக ெசக் Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 5 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Information sufficient to identify and distinguish people and organizations is widely dispersed… Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 6 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Networking Names Advisory Group Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 11 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Use case scenarios: Academic libraries and scholars • Academic researcher • University department • Library cataloger • Student • Scholar Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 12 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Use case scenarios: Archivists and archival users • Archivist creating narrative history • Archivist complementing archival materials description • Archival researcher identifying resources • Archival researcher- expert Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 13 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Use case scenarios: Institutional repositories • Researcher • Institutional repository manager who needs to normalize researcher names • Manager who needs to normalize corporate names • Manager who needs to normalize department names • Research information office manager Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 14 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Cooperative Identities Hub • Framework to concatenate and merge authoritative information • Gateway to all forms of names without preferring one form over another • Use social networking model • Provide a switch to extract relevant information for re-use in own contexts • Create federated trust environment to authenticate and authorize contributors Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 16 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Hub objectives • Increase metadata creation efficiency • Easier to identify identity regardless of language or discipline • Determine preferred form within own context • Enable contributing agencies to augment own data resources • Expose information about personal and corporate bodies beyond original contexts Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 17 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Hub functions • Searches by both people and software applications • Edit: Add information, merge, split, flag for deletion • Create new entities • Batch update • Discussion • Audit trail and rollback Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 18 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

What do we have? • A vision of an Identities Hub • Thousands of libraries, archives, and museums • WorldCat bibliographic & holdings data • LC/NACO Name Authority File • Other library authority files • WorldCat Identities • A page for name in WorldCat • Virtual International Authority File • A merge of a dozen national-level authority files Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 19 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

WorldCat Identities Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 20 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Searching Identities Jump to Editing Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 25 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

More WorldCat Identities Jump to Editing Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 27 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Editing WorldCat Identities Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 32 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Merged result Immediately visible in Identities Persistent in Identities Information fed into established channels Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 37 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Plans • Implement editing in Research version of Identities • Feed information (manually) into WorldCat/NAF • Investigate how best to move to production • Explore relationship with the Virtual International Authority File Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 38 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Discussion • Additional use case scenarios for your environment? • What would benefit you the most? • What is most appealing about Identities? What else is needed? Names and Identities, Smith-Yoshimura and Hickey 39 2009 Annual RLG Partnership Meeting , 2009-06

Names and Identities

by OCLC Research

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

1 Embed 3

Statistics