I don't think the inclusion of non-NAF headings in Identities is a flaw, it's a benefit to the purpose of Identities not to be held back by the somewhat glacial pace of change in NAF. But you're right, the right tool for the job, I don't know that any of the existing OCLC "free" (or included with other OCLC membership/services) services are the right tool to replace any existing purchased authorities tools or sources. It depends on what you're using them for, of course. I agree that the brochure statement was potentially misleading, but these (Identities, Terminologies, Research Terminologies) are still very interesting and useful services.
________________________________________
From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ya'aqov Ziso [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 2:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] WorldCat Terminologies
Karen,
Seems like pulling-teeth was worth it. Thank you for these updates and for
making them available for all interested.
Essentially, given your 6 months latency compared to http://id.loc.gov) and
the inclusion of NAF and non-NAF headings in Identities,
both Terminologies and Identities are not yet at a level of databases that
libraries can go for, forgoing what they currently need to buy, load, and
maintain locally.
Your withdrawal of the brochure statement is justified and apology accepted.
Yašaqov
On 3/19/10 1:35 PM, "Karen Coombs" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Yašaqov,
>
> Identities is not based on a name authority file it is based on name data in
> WorldCat. These two are not the same thing. Names within Identities come from
> several different fields within the WorldCat MARC records including 1xx, 6xx,
> and 7xx fields. This is why Identities contains names which have not made
> their way into a name authority file
> (http://www.worldcat.org/identities/np-levan,%20ralph%20r). Also Identities
> doesnšt contain authority records, it contains Identity records. Identity
> records contain different information from Authority records.
>
> There are name authority projects going on within OCLC Research. The most
> active is VIAF http://www.viaf.org/ . This service contains name authority
> information from several national libraries, not just Library of Congress and
> right now not all of NACO has been loaded, only differentiate personal names.
> More information on the VIAF project is available at
> http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/viaf/
>
> Regarding up to dateness of Terminologies as I said in my previous message a
> schedule for updates was posted to the Developer Network listserv and the
> Developer Network wiki
> (http://worldcat.org/devnet/wiki/Terminologies_Updates). Andrew Houghton has
> also informed you that information about how recently a given terminology is
> located on the Experimental Terminologies page (
> http://tspilot.oclc.org/resources/index.html).
>
> Karen
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