conciliator

conciliator is a growing collection of OpenRefine reconciliation services, as well as a Java framework for creating them. A reconciliation service tries to match variant text (usually names of things) to standard IDs for the entity represented by that text.

This project supercedes refine_viaf.

Public Server

If your needs are low and you can't or don't want to run this software yourself, you can use the public server at http://refine.codefork.com/. Visit that address for more instructions.

General Features

• Out of the box support for the following data sources:

  • VIAF - Virtual International Authority File
  • ORCID - digital identifiers for researchers
  • more to come (if you can contribute, please submit pull requests!)

• Good performance (uses threads; stable memory usage; caches results)

• Super easy to run (works on Linux, Mac, Windows)

VIAF Data Source Features

• Support for the following types of names provided by VIAF: Corporate Names, Geographic Names, Personal Names, Works, Expressions

• "Proxy mode" to retrieve IDs used by source institutions, instead of VIAF IDs. (NOTE: hyperlinks to source record pages in OpenRefine are supported for BNE, DNB, ICCU, JPG, LC, NDL, SELIBR, SUDOC, and WKP. Links are BROKEN for BNC, BNF, DBC, and NUKAT. For all other sources, the links will take you to the VIAF page.)

ORCID Data Source Features

• It works!

Running Conciliator on Your Own Computer

Install Java 1.7 or greater if you don't already have it.

Download the .jar file for the latest release. Alternatively, you can download the source code tarball or clone this repository, and build the .jar file using maven.

Run this command:

java -jar conciliator-1.0.2.jar

That's it! You should see some messages as the application starts up. Now you're ready to configure OpenRefine to use the service. When you're done with it, hit Ctrl-C to quit the application.

Configuring OpenRefine

1. In OpenRefine, chose a column of names you want to reconcile, and select "Reconcile" and "Start Reconciling..." in the column pull-down menu.

2. Click "Add Standard Service..."

3. Enter a URL based on the data source you wish to use.

   To reconcile against names from any VIAF source, type in:

   http://localhost:8080/reconcile/viaf
   

   To reconcile against a specific VIAF source, append its code to the end of the path. For example, to search only names from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, type in:

   http://localhost:8080/reconcile/viaf/BNF
   

   To retrieve the IDs used by source institutions, rather than VIAF IDs, use "proxy mode." For example, to search only names from the Library of Congress and retrieve their IDs, type in:

   http://localhost:8080/reconcile/viafproxy/LC
   

   To use ORCID:

   http://localhost:8080/reconcile/orcid
   

4. Follow the instructions on the dialog box to start reconciling names.

Creating Your Own Data Source

1. Clone this repository to get the source code.

2. Create a class for your data source that extends com.codefork.refine.datasource.WebServiceDataSource. Implement the abstract methods as required. Write a test or two if you like.

3. Create a class for the service metadata response, extending com.codefork.refine.resources.ServiceMetaDataResponse

4. Register your new data source class in the conciliator.properties file by adding the following lines:

   datasource.new_source=com.company.MyDataSource
   datasource.new_source.name=My DataSource
   

5. Build a new .jar by running mvn package. Run the .jar file as in the instructions above, and you should be able to access the service for your new data source at:

   http://localhost:8080/reconcile/new_source
   

Advanced Usage

To build from the source code, install maven and type:

mvn package

If you want to host this software on a server for long-term usage or if you want to enable logging for debugging purposes, take a look at run.sh for some helpful options.

You can change run-time options by editing the conciliator.properties file.

TODO

A few aspects of the Reconciliation Service API aren't implemented by this framework yet.

Resources

Specification for the Reconciliation Service API:

https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine/wiki/Reconciliation-Service-Api

This code drew inspiration from these other projects:

• https://github.com/rdmpage/phyloinformatics
• https://github.com/mikejs/reconcile-demo/

Do you use this thing??

If so, please take a few seconds to leave a comment on this page. Hearing from users really motivates me to continue improving this project.

License

This code is distributed under a GNU General Public License. See the file LICENSE for details.