Names Project

I'm intrigued by the Names Project to identify requirements and develop a prototype service that will reliably and uniquely identify individuals and institutions for institutional and subject repositories in the UK. They report anecdotally that more than 75% of authors represented in IRs aren't in LCNAF. The goal is a straightforward and laudable one: a centralized name authority module that will plug into existing and future repository software and provide autocompletion of author names for depositors of materials and for searchers of the systems.

I found this paper by Amanda Hill to be the best introduction to the project. The project has just issued a software specification and I plan to watch its progress.