The Library of Congress, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) have signed a memorandum of understanding to extend and enhance the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), a project that virtually combines multiple name-authority files into a single name-authority service.
Building on a previous proof-of-concept research project by the Library, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (the German national library) and OCLC, the new agreement adds the Bibliothèque nationale de France (the French national library) as a principal partner in VIAF and will lead to the inclusion of content from name authority files maintained by the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
The French name authority records will be added to the existing VIAF files built from authority data from the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and the Library of Congress. VIAF’s matching routines were developed by OCLC research.
The long-term goal of the VIAF project is to include authoritative names from many libraries into a global service that will be freely available via the Web to users worldwide. The addition of content from Bibliothèque nationale de France represents the initial step in expanding the scope of VIAF. The newly signed agreement also provides a framework for adding more authority files from other agencies over time.
VIAF represents a significant step toward interoperability among library bibliographic agencies. By linking disparate names for the same person or organization, VIAF will in the near-term provide a convenient means for a wider community of libraries and agencies to better repurpose bibliographic data produced by libraries in English-, French-, and German-speaking communities, and is expected to provide the same advantages to a wider assortment of language communities in the years to come.
