Talk:Virtual International Authority File

Libraries Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Libraries, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Libraries on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LibrariesWikipedia:WikiProject LibrariesTemplate:WikiProject LibrariesLibraries
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Library of Congress Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Library of Congress, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Library of Congress on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Library of CongressWikipedia:WikiProject Library of CongressTemplate:WikiProject Library of CongressLibrary of Congress
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.

Guild of Copy Editors

This article was copy edited by Allens, a member of the Guild of Copy Editors, on 19 March 2012.Guild of Copy EditorsWikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsTemplate:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsGuild of Copy Editors

When?

When was it started, and when did Wikipedia adopt it?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 14:41, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See history of Template:Authority control (earliest portion, 2009-2011).

See also my reply below. --P64 (talk) 22:18, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

May we add the backstory to the VIAF origins? From Dr. Barbara B. Tillett, retired, Library of Congress: The idea of the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) was started by Dr. Barbara Tillett (Library of Congress) and Christel Hengel (Die Deutsche Bibliothek, later Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) over lunch at an IFLA Conference in 1997. Dr. Tillett suggested including Ed O'Neill at OCLC's Research Office to help with the technical infrastructure, based on work OCLC had done with authority records. Tillett, Hengel, and O'Neill secured permissions through their respective institutions to proceed with a proof-of-concept, and an agreement was signed at the Library of Congress in April 1998 by LC, DNB, and OCLC. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-11845-95 (talk) 19:45, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Two entries in the VIAF database for some people and two identifiers

If there are two entries in the VIAF database for some people and two identifiers, what do we do? I have written the VIAF people when I find synonyms, but no one writes backerges the people in the database. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:02, 10 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Short answer, see Wikipedia:VIAF/errors

See also my reply below. --P64 (talk) 22:22, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone have a contact at VIAF.org?

Does anyone have a contact at VIAF.org? I want to see what the process is for synonyms and if there is a process to assign VIAF numbers to people not in their database that are authors. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:32, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Short answer, see Wikipedia talk:Authority control#Liaison with VIAF where someone from VIAF came out of the closet here only a few days after your first inquiry above.

Medium answer, see these pages and their talk.

and perhaps also Wikipedia:OCLC and OCLC.

General answer, something I hope you infer correctly about the use of Wikipedia, Template, Help, and other "spaces" to complement Article/list/redirect space, usually for the purposes of editors only.

--P64 (talk) 22:12, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This hour I replied to all three sections of this talk page. Concerning all three, perhaps, see also

Wikipedia:WikiProject Unique Identifiers, created February 2012

(which i discovered only now and haven't yet read). --P64 (talk) 22:28, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Now an OCLC service

https://www.oclc.org/news/releases/2012/201224.en.html - VIAF is now a service of OCLC, working in cooperation with the participants. - kosboot (talk) 16:10, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Digitale Bibliotheek Vlaanderen

I was wondering how and where this Flemish organization could be added to the article. Since 2015 Bibnet [nl] and Locus are Cultuurconnect. Thank your for your time. Lotje (talk) 12:18, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]