The International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI): The Evolving Future of Name Authority Control

This article describes the project to build the initial International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) database by deploying the techniques used to develop the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF). It focuses particularly on the work of the OCLC team in transforming the VIAF “resource file” model of matched data into a robust, operational, and authoritative file of uniquely assigned ISNIs as a base for an ongoing ISNI assignment system, and on the quality assurance validation of the database provided by the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The need for future interaction between ongoing ISNI assignment and name authority control in libraries is also explored.