You can try our "label" service. See under "known label retrieval" here:
http://id.loc.gov/techcenter/searching.html
I would be glad to help further.

Thanks, Nate

-----------------------------------------
Nate Trail
Network Development & MARC Standards Office
LS/ABA/NDMSO
LA308, Mail Stop 4402
Library of Congress
Washington DC 20540




-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Josh Welker
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2017 11:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] Searching LC Name Authority file programmatically

I have sort of inherited authority control recently at my library, and I want to find some way to automate some common workflows. I am looking for an easy way to query blind name references against the LC Name Authority master file. There is no API for searching it on the web, and the name file itself is 10+ GB and hard to work with.

Here are options as I see them:


   - Screen scrape the search engine at id.loc.gov.
   - Load the 10+ GB name file into a local database to query
   programmatically.

Does anyone have experience with either method? Does some other method exist I am not aware of?

Joshua Welker
Information Technology Librarian
James C. Kirkpatrick Library
University of Central Missouri
Warrensburg, MO 64093
JCKL 2260
660.543.8022