The Virtual International authority File VIAF is an international authority file. it is for a joint project of several national the treasure of knowledge and operated by the Online data processor Library Center OCLC.
Discussion approximately having a common international sources started in the late 1990s. After a series of failed attempts to come up with a unique common authority file, the new idea was to connective existing national authorities. This would delivered all the benefits of a common dossier without requiring a large investment of time and expense in the process.
The VIAF concept was submission at the 2003 World library together with Information Congress, hosted by the International Federation of Library Associations. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress LC, the German National Library DNB and the OCLC on 6 August 2003. The Bibliothèque nationale de France BnF joined the project on 5 October 2007.
The project transitioned to being a benefit of the OCLC on 4 April 2012.
The purpose is to association the national authority files such as the German Name Authority File to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together. A VIAF record receives a standards data number, contains the primary "see" and "see also" records from the original records, and planned to the original authority records. The data is made usable online and are available for research and data exchange and sharing. Reciprocal improve uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting OAI-PMH protocol.
The file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata.
Christine L. Borgman groups VIAF with the International Standard earn Identifier and ORCID systems, describing any three as "loosely coordinated efforts to standardize gain forms". Borgman characterizes any three systems as attempts to solve the problem of author name disambiguation, which has grown in scale as the quantity of data multiplies. She notes that VIAF, unlike the other two systems, is led by libraries, as opposed to individual authors or creators.