Ed,

Any suggestions or recommendations on what such an API would look
like, what response format(s) would be best, and how to advertise the
availability of a local name authority API? Who should we expect would
use our local name authority API? Are any of the examples from the big
authority databases like VIAF ones that would be good to follow for
API design and response formats?

Jason

On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 3:15 PM, Ed Summers <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 5:19 PM, Kyle Banerjee <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> This would certainly be a possibility for other projects, but the use case
>> we're immediately concerned with requires an authority file that's
>> maintained by our local archives. It contains all kinds of information
>> about people (degrees, nicknames, etc) as well as terminology which is not
>> technically kosher but which we know people use.
>
> Just as an aside really, I think there's a real opportunity for
> libraries and archives to make their local thesauri and name indexes
> available for integration into other applications both inside and
> outside their institutional walls. Wikipedia, Freebase, VIAF are
> great, but their notability guidelines don't always the greatest match
> for cultural heritage organizations. So seriously consider putting a
> little web app around the information you have, using it for
> maintaining the data, making it available programatically (API), and
> linking it out to other databases (VIAF, etc) as needed.
>
> A briefer/pithier way of saying this is to quote Mark Matienzo [1]
>
>   Sooner or later, everyone needs a vocabulary management app.
>
> :-)
>
> //Ed
>
> PS. I think Mark Phillips has done some interesting work in this area
> at UNT. But I don't have anything to point you at, maybe Mark is tuned
> in, and can chime in.
>
> [1] https://twitter.com/anarchivist/status/269654403701682176