VIAF

If your books are split across two entries, or mixed in with another writer's, this is where you can see it, because it draws together what the contributing library files say about you. A first-time author will often find nothing here yet, and that is normal rather than a gap. Nobody on any route can claim, create, or edit an entry, so all three routes do the same thing, which is look; a wrong cluster is a symptom of a problem in one of the source files, and the fix normally has to be made there, through a cataloger or the relevant national library. Check that the works in the cluster are yours and record the identifier if the cluster is right.

The Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) is a service hosted by OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) that takes name authority files from dozens of national libraries and other contributors, matches records that describe the same person, and links them into one cluster with a single VIAF identifier. The Library of Congress/NACO file, the national libraries of France, Germany, Spain, Japan, and many others, ISNI, and Wikidata are all contributors.

VIAF began in 1998 as a project of the Library of Congress, the German National Library, and OCLC, and is now governed by a VIAF Council with input from more than fifty organizations. OCLC maintains the hosting, software, and data.

Nothing that an author can change. VIAF reflects what the contributing authority files say. If the Library of Congress record for you is correct and a national library abroad has a record for you, VIAF is where those two get linked. A wrong cluster (two people merged, or one person split) is a symptom of a problem in a source file, or of the matching process.

Search your name after your first book has been cataloged by a library, and again occasionally. Look at which source files appear in your cluster and whether the works listed are all yours. If someone else's books are mixed in, or your books are split across two clusters, the fix usually has to happen in one of the source authority files, most often through a cataloger at a NACO institution or the relevant national library. OCLC's site does invite comments, but it does not offer author accounts.

Do not try to claim, create, or edit a VIAF entry. There is no such feature, and a service that promises to do it for you is selling something else.

1. Go to viaf.org (opens in a new tab) and search your name with All Fields selected.
2. Open the cluster that matches and review the source files, name forms, and works.
3. Record the VIAF identifier on your identity sheet next to your ISNI and LC authority identifier.
4. If the cluster is wrong, note which source file carries the error and route the correction to that file's owner.

VIAF is not an ISNI, although an ISNI often appears inside a VIAF cluster. It is not the LC/NACO authority record; it links to that record. It is not a registry an author joins and not an author profile. Its identifiers are also not stable in the way an ISNI is; clusters can be rebuilt when source data changes.