Implementing Name Authority Control into Institutional Repositories: A Staged Approach Page: 3

                                
tags that reference other metadata representations of the
record. The developers used appropriate HTTP response
codes for features such as merged, suppressed, or deleted
records. A simple Application Programming Interface
(API) allows name lookups utilizing the Name Authority
Cooperative Project (NACO) Normalization Rules and
provides batch loading of names as well as programmatic
lookup and resolution of names. Each name is assigned a
unique number that is used to create the URL for the
name, and which acts as the unique identifier for the
record.
 me Personal                                Submit
Aagaard-Nilsen, Torstein, 1964-
Authorized:  Aagaard-Nilsen. Torstein. 1964-
Name Type:  Personal
URI:    http:i' c_.: :;2, :r rv,uri:,curin. ro'rrOO 520r3
Begin date:  1964
Links:   "  , oInternal: UNT Libraries Digital  ollectlcnE
*  \V' Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/w ski en Aagaarc-'  0.cn
* /VIAF: http://viaf.org/viaf/81231109
*  I  LOC: ha::   c. cc.gc'.u i: Sr 11 ,CS..'r7 s c20010G1874
Alternate Formats
Figure 1: Example of an authority record in the UNT Name App.
Stage Two: Making it Available to Metadata
Creators
Metadata creators and editors at UNT Libraries perform
their normal operations within a form-based metadata
editing application, also written in Django. The form
includes helper utilities to facilitate the creation of
normalized vocabularies and standards-based content. It
provides autocomplete options for controlled
vocabularies, drop-down list options for qualifiers, and
validation against date/time standards,'3 as well as geo-
spatial mapping tools.
Data-entry personnel have access to the data in the UNT
Name App through a type-ahead feature on a select
number of fields such as Creator, Contributor, and
Publisher. As an editor types, Asynchronous JavaScript
And XML (AJAX) requests are made to the UNT Name App
on each keypress. The request searches across the fields
and JSON responses populate a selectable list of candidate
names that appears below the typed field. Because of the
nearly-simultaneous interaction, editors can view
approved names, disambiguations, and other information
in real time (see Figure 2). At any point an editor may
select a name and the typed information is replaced with
the appropriate value from the UNT Name App.

CREATOR
name:
-he name ofpa person. organization, or event conference meeting. etc.: assocated in some way with the resource
Joe Smi
Smith, JoeT.       I     Dean ofStudenws, PiLD        I      . 1951
Smith, Joe         I     B. 1876     D, 1933
Personal

.1
,11

-r -a ta[e person or organization played in the creation of the iem
Author
Additional information about the creator related to the specific item

Figure 2. Example of type-ahead name tool in the metadata web
form.
Individual names that appear within the type-ahead utility
are linked to their respective records within the UNT
Name App, giving editors quick access to enhance,
expand, or alter the record information for the authorized
name (e.g., to add new variants, connections, or other
relevant data). Names can also be entered into a field
manually if they are not yet in the Name App.
Stage Three: Storing Links
Once the information in the UNT Name App is available to
metadata creators, the next step involves shifting the
metadata coding from strings to links. Although humans
can easily compare text strings, computers need
something more concrete to distinguish a relationship
between terms and entities.
For example, there are entries in the UNT system for Don
Smith, Don W. Smith, Donald Smith, and Donald W.
Smith. A computer may note that the level of similarity
makes it probable that some (or all) of the names are the
same person; however, it cannot make those final
judgments. Some records with the names "Donald Smith"
and "Donald W. Smith" are for items published by the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)
during the 1940s-1950s and likely refer to the same
person. Several other records include the name "Donald
[W.] Smith" referring to a major professor or committee
member for UNT theses and dissertations during the
2000s on topics in the biological sciences; that professor
completed his bachelor's degree in 1958, at the time of
publication for many of the NACA reports. In this case,
name authority should distinguish Donald Smith-the-
aeronautics-engineer and Donald Smith-the-biology-
professor as separate persons.
During this interim stage, nothing visibly changes for users
but the infrastructure of the metadata and the system
where it lives become more compatible with linked data
(see Figure 3). Storing links which identify names or
concepts allows for the possibility of using the data in
more diverse ways at later stages in system development.

13 http://www.loc.gov/standards/datetime/