University of Glasgow

Roderic Page

![Refine](http://lh4.ggpht.com/-HsS8f5sKWWc/Ty_fgRiXiII/AAAAAAAABHg/In4r9NXMkoc/refine.png?imgmax=800){border="0"
width="128" height="128" style="float:right;"}In an [earlier
post](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2012/02/using-google-refine-and-taxonomic.html)
I discussed using [Open Refine](http://openrefine.org/) (formerly
[Google Refine](https://code.google.com/p/google-refine/)) to clean and
reconcile taxon names. I\'ve added an additional service that can be
used to reconcile author names that uses the [Virtual International
Authority File (VIAF)](http://viaf.org/) API. Using this service we can
match authors to VIAF identifiers (you may have noticed these appearing
on people\'s pages in Wikipedia, e.g. [Mary J.
Rathbun](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Rathbun)\'s Wikipedia page
lists her VIAF as [61796012](http://viaf.org/viaf/61796012)).  
  
To use the service follow the instructions in the [earlier
post](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2012/02/using-google-refine-and-taxonomic.html)
but add the service:  
  
http://iphylo.org/\~rpage/phyloinformatics/services/reconciliation_viaf.php  
  
This service is fairly crude, in particular, I make no attempt to score
the matches that VIAR returns because this would require parsing and
normalising author names. This could be added if needed. If you want
some exmaple names to try, here are some taxonomists:  
  

    George A Boulenger
    G A Boulenger
    Wilhelm Michaelsen
    W Michaelsen
    Colin Campbell Sanborn
    Suzanne Hand
    Philip Hershkovitz
    Yehudah Leopold Werner
    W B Spencer
    Norman Platnick


In an earlier post I discussed using Open Refine (formerly Google Refine) to clean and reconcile taxon names. I've added an additional service that can be used to reconcile author names that uses the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) API.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

Reconciling author names using Open Refine and VIAF