Thom discusses the updated viaf.org site …
The VIAF site has recently had a major overhaul. What you now search are records created from a merge of matching source authority records. Within this record you can see what source records were used to create it, along with cross references and other information gleaned both from the authority records and from associated bibliographic records. [Outgoing: Changes to VIAF]
There are 7.8 million VIAF records built from 9.2 million source records across four authority files. More files will follow and Thom also describes proposed directions in how the data is presented.
My authority control poster child is Flann O’Brien [WC Identities, VIAF]. Here is the variety of alternate names listed for him …
Here is the Marc 21 data.
For those that are interested in the implementation detail …
The whole site is just a thin layer of XSLT stylesheets and URL rewrite rules over an SRU database. Other than some JavaScript, virtually everything else is XSL transforms on XML data returned from SRU queries. The graph is put up using a JavaScript vector graphics package jsGraphics. Mouse overs, etc. are currently working better in Firefox than IE. [Outgoing: Changes to VIAF]
