Names (but not IDs) for Name Authority Services

In my last post I asked “What should we call this name-authority, vocabulary-server, linked-data URI factory service we are building for ANDS?” I got a few answers, one of which I really like, but they're really suitable as names for a particular service rather than the class of services.

MINT : “Mashing Identifiers and Names Together” – Debbie Campbell of the NLA.

AWESOME : Dorothea Salo suggested this without a gloss. I'm not sure if she realised the tie-in with AWE – The Academic Work(ing) Environment which is a working title for the technology stack we use, and which is the theme of my talk for Open Repositories 2010. So with my, um, awesome, DIY backronym skillz it's: : “Academic Work Environment Semantics for Open Materials Exchange”

CATNIP : “Collating All Terms Name Identifier Project”. This is Andew Treloar's [update: fixed spelling] attempt. Not really in the same class as ARROW, DART and ARCHER.

But still, the class of thing I was describing doesn't seem to have a name, and nobody at the round table had a suggestion. I am now thinking that it should be called an Linked Authority Control Service. That is, it's a thing to do authority control, in a linked-data, semantic-web way. But what call the instance of the service? Well, the naming convention we're developing for The Fascinator, the software construction-set which will power the service is to have “editions”, so the thing you would download and install would be called something like “The Fascinator, Linked Authority Control Edition” which you might install alongside “The (forthcoming) Fascinator, Institutional Repository Edition” and set up to integrate with instances of “The Fascinator, Desktop Edition” sprinkled around the institution, picking up data and related publications at the source, from people's local drives, labs, instruments etc. Once you've installed it and you need a name to call it by, I don't think you can go past “The Mint”, so thanks Debbie, I'll get you something minty next time I see you. Just think what we can do with our own linked-data mint. We can control the linked-data economy. If we wanted to cause inflation by minting new URI's for John Smiths without having enough actual John Smiths to back them up then we, like, could. Not that we'd use our power for evil or nothing. Come to think of it, if I could mint another Alan James Smith I would. Copyright Peter Sefton, 2010. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia. <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/au/>

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