Thanks Karen

Looks like the OL code uses birth date + name, which is just what I was
thinking of doing. Although you say it's to run against a wikipedia dump
it looks like it should actually work with small changes against the
wikipedia API too. But I need this in PHP so I'll have to pick through
it and convert from perl and python before I can test it properly.

What was the javascript code you referenced below? Your link is to
jquery, rather than the script you mentioned in the text.

Graham



On 05/19/11 15:39, Karen Coyle wrote:
> This sounds like a great way to "translate" from library forms to
> wikipedia name forms. But for on-the-fly use I wonder if it wouldn't be
> more efficient to eliminate the "middle man." Karen, can you say a
> little about what it took to link library names to WP? Was it a
> one-step, two-step, etc.?
> 
> There is a script that I've seen used, although it doesn't seem to be
> production ready:
> 
>   https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.4/jquery.min.js
> 
> One interesting note from the OL experience of linking to WP: generally
> you need to "re-reverse" the names to get a match: from Twain, Mark to
> Mark Twain. But for some names that isn't the case: Mao, Tse-Tung.
> Edward Betts used Wikipedia to determine which names do not get
> "re-reversed".
> 
> The OL code for its wikipedia lookup is at:
>  
> https://github.com/openlibrary/openlibrary/tree/master/openlibrary/catalog/wikipedia
> 
> 
> It, however, runs against dumps rather than an API.
> 
> kc
> 
> Quoting Karen Coombs <[log in to unmask]>:
> 
>> Graham,
>>
>> I'd advocate using WorldCat Identities to get to the appropriate url
>> for dbpedia. Each Identity record has a wikipedia element in it that
>> you could use to link to either Wikipedia or dbpedia.
>>
>> If you want to see an example of this in action you can check out the
>> Author Info demo I did for code4lib 2010 here -
>> http://www.librarywebchic.net/mashups/author_info/info_about_this_author.php?OCLCNum=32939031
>>
>>
>> The code for this demo is available for download at -
>> http://www.worldcat.org/devnet/code/devnetDemos/trunk/
>>
>> You'll want the author_info folder and identity_info.php
>>
>> Karen
>>
>> Karen A. Coombs
>> Product Manager
>> OCLC Developer Network
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 4:40 AM, graham <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> I need to be able to take author data from a catalogue record and use it
>>> to look up the author on Wikipedia on the fly. So I may have birth date
>>> and possibly year of death in addition to (one spelling of) the name,
>>> the title of one book the author wrote etc.
>>>
>>> I know there are various efforts in progress that will improve the
>>> current situation, but as things stand at the moment what is the best*
>>> way to do this?
>>>
>>> 1. query wikipedia for as much as possible, parse and select the best
>>> fitting result
>>>
>>> 2. go via dbpedia/freebase and work back from there
>>>
>>> 3. use VIAF and/or OCLC services
>>>
>>> 4. Other?
>>>
>>> (I have no experience of 2-4 yet :-(
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> Graham
>>> * 'best' being constrained by:
>>> - need to do this in real-time
>>> - need to avoid dependence on services which may be taken away
>>> or charged for
>>> - being able to justify to librarians as reasonably accurate :-)
>>>
>>
> 
> 
>