Resolving VIAF URI's

Symptom

• We are having trouble resolving VIAF URIs to RDF-records (analyzing/handling the data) in a programmatic way.

Applies to

• VIAF

Resolution

Some general hints:

1. Drop the /en/ prefix. https://viaf.org/en/viaf/{ID} is the human web interface and will return HTML.
   Only the un-prefixed permalink form negotiates content. If the metadata carries /en/ URIs, normalize them out.
2. Follow redirects. Clusters get merged, and a merged ID returns a 301 to its successor. Withdrawn ("scavenged") clusters are flagged in the record itself, so check for that rather than assuming a 200 means a live ID.
    

Page ID