Relations between ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier) and VIAF (Virtual International Authority File). Differences, commonalities and complementarity. Interoperation between the two systems. How ISNI consolidates identification of public identities and contributes to linking data across domains.

1. Anila Angjeli
1APARSEN - Interoperability of PI workshop, iPRES, Lisbon, 5 September 2013
VIAF
and
Member of the Board of directors of ISNI-IA

2. VIAF
• Merge of 32+ national level authority files
• 34 + million authority records
• 103 + million bibliographic records
• 23 + million merged clusters
Persons, organizations, meetings, geographic
names, works and expressions
though young (less than 10 years) …
from VIAF to ISNI

3. Libraries
Text Rights
Music RightsTrade Sources
Encyclopaedias
Researchers & Professional
cross-domain bridging-domains

4. Figures
+ % confidence
- % confidence
Assigned ISNIs to VIAF July 2013
2 + independent sources 2,496,141
3+ VIAF sources 656,976
Unique name 2,643,958
Total 5,797,075
Provisional: Unassigned
9,563,590
Provisional: Possible
580,738
Assigned
6.87 million
Number of data contributors
VIAF 39
Others 25
Total
(in permanent growth)
64
Cross links among sources through local IDs
Over 7,6 million

5. Governance & control infrastructure
ISNI-IA
ISO Registration Authority
(the governing body)
Quality Team
libraries
data
ISNI-AA
Assignment Agency
(manages the central database)
Registration
Agency
Registration
Agency
Registration
Agency
Registration
Agency
Registration
Agency
Member
Member
Member
enduser
enduser
database

6. • Samples data regularly
– c. 2% VIAF clusters have mixed identities
– Duplicate clusters are higher, nearer 5%
• Makes corrections at cluster level
– Merges, splits, error notifications
– Access to cataloguing client / macros
• Makes system recommendations
• Gives approval for single source assignment
• Responds to End User input
ISNI Quality Team

7. Domain Cross-domain identities Authority files +
Main
purpose
Certified ID
(unique, persistent, international,
cross-domain) 27729
Clustering, federating authority
files for reuse
(initially not an ID system)
ID degree of
persistency
Permanent As persistent as possible
Referent
PublicIdentities
 Persons
 Organizations
 Fictional
Authority
 Persons
 Organizations
 Meetings, Works/Expr, Geog
Data privacy
Includes private data
(not disclosed to public)
All public data
Assignment
principles
Matching authoritative data sources
 No sparse records
 No undifferentiated identities
Matching authority files
Management
Centrally managed
Quality Team (BnF+BL)
Maintenance of source authority
files in the contributing databases
Links
Among source data, Titles of works,
Related identities, Wikipedia, Other encycl
sources
 VIAF
Among source files, Wikipedia,
 ISNI
Linked data Soon Yes
differences – commonalities - complementarity

8. Interest for interoperability
VIAF – ISNI
Areas of interest
• Same referent (semantic)
• Communities of users sharing interests
• Same user operating in multiple communities
8

9. VIAF-ISNI inter
 Monthly updates
 ISNIsReprocessing
after notification
 Error notifications
Quality Team
Quality
control
matching
Assignment
Error detection
Reminder: VIAF  seed database for ISNI
VIAF-ISNI Task Force
Policy on pseudonyms  Study notification work flows
Participate in cluster sampling in VIAF and ISNI  Help define new anomaly detectors, etc
-relationship
-operability

10. Linked
10
External Link

11. Thank you!
anila.angjeli@bnf.fr