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 :-) >> > -- Karen Coyle [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet