Managing Ambiguity in VIAF¶

Hickey, & Toves. (2014). Managing Ambiguity in VIAF. D-Lib Magazine.

Type: Journal article
Intellectual base: Primary research
Year: 2014
DOI: 10.1045/july2014-hickey
DOI registrant: CNRI Acct
Link: https://doi.org/10.1045/july2014-hickey

Cited by¶

3 citations across 3 artifacts.

Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.

Domain-specific¶

Authority Record
- the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), which clusters authority records from dozens of national libraries under a shared identifier
  This sourceThe Virtual International Authority File, which links and combines names from more than 130 million authority and bibliographic records into shared clusters. The cited study describes VIAF clustering the contributed national-library records without replacing the source authority data, which is the sentence's VIAF exception; it does not address the other files.
  
  Supported in partVerified against the publisher's abstract
  
  “In a series of automated steps these names are linked and combined into VIAF clusters.”
  From the publisher's abstract.
  
  Read by an automated reader; not a human review. How support was checked
Authorized access point
- A working cataloger receiving a new book by a "John Smith" cannot link the record until she resolves the name against LC/NAF, because "Smith, John" is among the most collision-prone strings in the catalog
  This sourceThe account of how VIAF manages ambiguity across tens of millions of names, from initial matching to cluster creation, and how local authority records are built from clusters.
  
  Supported in partVerified against a saved copy of the source
  
  “the creation of new 'local' authority records for authors based on information already in VIAF”
  From a saved copy of the source.
  
  Read by an automated reader; not a human review. How support was checked
Preferred label
- The same discipline appears in library name authority files (the heading field in a LCNAF or VIAF record), in the Getty Vocabularies' preferred term fields, and in Wikidata's "label" field (which functions as the preferred label in a given language, distinct from aliases)
  This sourceHickey and Toves's account of VIAF, an aggregation of many agencies' authority records in multiple languages and scripts that clusters names and can itself be used as an authority file.
  
  Supported in partVerified against the publisher's abstract
  
  “VIAF does not replace the source authority data, but creates something new built upon the relations mined from it.”
  From the publisher's abstract.
  
  Read by an automated reader; not a human review. How support was checked

Verification¶

Does it exist? Not checked yet. This work's DOI is recorded above but has not been resolved against an external catalogue, so nothing here confirms the work exists.

Does it back the claim? Read against the text for 3 of 3 citations: 3 supported in part. Each verdict is shown under its citation below, with what in the work backs the sentence.

Support is checked per citation rather than per work — the same source can be cited soundly in one article and wrongly in another. Per-citation recording began recently, so a citation with no recorded check is a gap in the record rather than evidence it went unchecked.

See how references were verified.

Registry ID ref:f659ebcf2599 · see in the full table