For yet another data set and API that may or may not meet your needs,
consider VIAF -- Virtual International Authority File, operated by OCLC.
The VIAF's dataset includes the LC NAF as well as other national
authority files, I'm not sure if the API is suitable to limiting matches
to the LC NAF, I haven't done much work with it, but I know it has an API.
http://oclc.org/developer/develop/web-services/viaf.en.html
On 9/29/14 10:18 AM, Trail, Nate wrote:
> The ID.loc.gov site has a good known label service described here under "known label retrieval" :
> http://id.loc.gov/techcenter/searching.html
>
> Use Curl and content negotiation to avoid screen scraping, for example, for LC Name authorities:
>
> curl -L -H "Accept: application/rdf+xml" "http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/label/Library%20of%20Congress"
>
> Nate
>
> ==========================
> Nate Trail
> LS/TECH/NDMSO
> Library of Congress
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Simon Brown
> Sent: Monday, September 29, 2014 9:38 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Reconciling corporate names?
>
> You could always web scrape, or download and then search the LCNAF with some script that looks like:
>
> #Build query for webscraping
> query = paste("http://id.loc.gov/search/?q=", URLencode("corporate name here "), "&q=cs%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fid.loc.gov%2Fauthorities%2Fnames")
>
> #Make the call
> result = readLines(query)
>
> #Find the lines containing "Corporate Name"
> lines = grep("Corporate Name, result)
>
> #Alternatively use approximate string matching on the downloaded LCNAF data query <- agrep("corporate name here",LCNAF_data_here)
>
> #Parse for whatever info you want
> ...
>
> My native programming language is R so I hope the functions like paste, readLines, grep, and URLencode are generic enough for other languages to have some kind of similar thing. This can just be wrapped up into a for
> loop:
> for(i in 1:40000){...}
>
> Web scraping the results of one name at a time would be SLOW and obviously using an API is the way to go but it didn't look like the OCLC LCNAF API handled Corporate Name. However, it sounds like in the previous message someone found a work around. Best of luck! -Simon
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 8:45 AM, Matt Carruthers <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Hi Patrick,
>>
>> Over the last few weeks I've been doing something very similar. I was
>> able to figure out a process that works using OpenRefine. It works by
>> searching the VIAF API first, limiting results to anything that is a
>> corporate name and has an LC source authority. OpenRefine then
>> extracts the LCCN and puts that through the LCNAF API that OCLC has to
>> get the name. I had to use VIAF for the initial name search because
>> for some reason the LCNAF API doesn't really handle corporate names as
>> search terms very well, but works with the LCCN just fine (there is
>> the possibility that I'm just doing something wrong, and if that's the
>> case, anyone on the list can feel free to correct me). In the end,
>> you get the LC name authority that corresponds to your search term and
>> a link to the authority on the LC Authorities website.
>>
>> Anyway, The process is fairly simple to run (just prepare an Excel
>> spreadsheet and paste JSON commands into OpenRefine). The only
>> reservation is that I don't think it will run all 40,000 of your names
>> at once. I've been using it to run 300-400 names at a time. That
>> said, I'd be happy to share what I did with you if you'd like to try
>> it out. I have some instructions written up in a Word doc, and the
>> JSON script is in a text file, so just email me off list and I can send them to you.
>>
>> Matt
>>
>> Matt Carruthers
>> Metadata Projects Librarian
>> University of Michigan
>> 734-615-5047
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 7:03 PM, Karen Hanson
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I found the WorldCat Identities API useful for an institution name
>>> disambiguation project that I worked on a few years ago, though my
>>> goal wasn't to confirm whether names mapped to LCNAF. The API
>>> response
>> includes
>>> a LCCN, and you can set it to fuzzy or exact matching, but you would
>>> need to write a script to pass each term in and process the results:
>>>
>>>
>> http://oclc.org/developer/develop/web-services/worldcat-identities.en.
>> html
>>>
>>> I also can't speak to whether all LC Name Authorities are
>>> represented, so there may be a chance of some false negatives.
>>>
>>> OCLC has another API, but not sure if it covers corporate names:
>>> https://platform.worldcat.org/api-explorer/LCNAF
>>>
>>> I suspect there are others on the list that know more about the
>>> inner workings of these APIs if this might be an option for you...
>>> :)
>>>
>>> Karen
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
>>> Of Ethan Gruber
>>> Sent: Friday, September 26, 2014 3:54 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Reconciling corporate names?
>>>
>>> I would check with the developers of SNAC (
>>> http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/), as they've spent a lot of
>>> time developing named entity recognition scripts for personal and
>>> corporate names. They might have something you can reuse.
>>>
>>> Ethan
>>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 3:47 PM, Galligan, Patrick <
>> [log in to unmask]
>>>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm looking to reconcile about 40,000 corporate names against
>>>> LCNAF to see whether they are authorized strings or not, but I'm
>>>> drawing a blank about how to get it done.
>>>>
>>>> I've used http://freeyourmetadata.org/ for reconciling subject
>>>> headings before, but I can't get it to work for LCNAF. Has anyone
>>>> had any experience in a project like this? I'd love to hear some
>>>> ideas for automatically dealing with a large data set like this
>>>> that we did not create and do not know how the names were created.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>>
>>>> -Patrick Galligan
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Simon Brown
> [log in to unmask]
> simoncharlesbrown (Skype)
> 831.440.7466 (Phone)
>
> *Following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been -- MJK*
>
>
