Names Project
Amanda Hill & Dan Needham
JISC Conference, 2010

http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2009/08/initials-and-names.html

Background
 Repositories Programme
 People depositing copies of their
papers, learning materials, slides in
institutional and subject-based digital
repositories
 Need to add name (and other) data to the
digital object for information retrieval
JISC Conference, 2010

What?
 Names of people involved in creating
materials
 Names of institutions and (perhaps)
departments
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Need to connect different forms of
names
 Murphy, M. L.
 Lynne Murphy And these
 M. L. Murphy are all spelt
 M. Lynne Murphy correctly!
 Murphy, M. Lynne
 M. Lynne Murphy
 Murphy, Mary Lynne
 Murphy, Lynne
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Retrieval
 Users/administrators/funders may want to
find all articles by a particular individual
 Difficult if the name has been entered in a
variety of ways
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Disambiguation
 Need to retrieve only those materials
deposited by that particular individual
 With common names, there will be many
matches – loss of precision
 Need to be able to uniquely identify
individuals
 Ideally using principles of Linked Data
JISC Conference, 2010

What is the Names Project?
 A JISC-funded Mimas project in collaboration with the British
Library
 Phase 1 (July 2007 – February 2009):
 Investigated the potential and requirements for a Name
Authority Service
 A prototype was developed with test set of data
Phase 2: (March 2009 – February 2011):
Expand prototype into pilot system
Look at future options as a service
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Millions of
names of Only
active initials, not full
researchers Mimas British forenames 
Library
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Process
 Use Zetoc to pre-populate the Names
system
 Identify unique individuals and assign
identifiers
 Enhance data with information from other
sources
 e.g. UKPMC grantees database
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Names Phase One Activities
 Establish requirements
 Determine data structure
 Map to existing name-related standards
(e.g. MARC, EAC-CPF, CERIF, FOAF)
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Current phase
 Testing matching algorithms
 Reviewing data structure
 Updating data mappings for revised and
new standards
 Collaborating with potential data
providers and Names users
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Demo
 http://names.mimas.ac.uk/individual/1
 http://names.mimas.ac.uk/script-test-two/
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RDF version of record
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Longer term
 Allow researchers to edit their own
information (e.g. to specify a preferred
form of name)
 Arrange for upload of information from
 universities
 repositories
 funding bodies
JISC Conference, 2010

Broader context
 Lots of activity in this area right now
 ORCID (Open Researcher Contributor Identifier)
 VIAF (OCLC)
 ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier)
 Various national initiatives in other countries
 Netherlands
 Australia
 Poland/Spain (under consideration)
 Will be a while before a clear picture emerges
JISC Conference, 2010

Project updates
 Names website: http://names.mimas.ac.uk
 Project blog:
http://namesproject.wordpress.com
 Twitter: @NamesProject
JISC Conference, 2010