The Author Abbreviation Resolver is a web service and database of variations within the recording of authors of taxonomic names. Data was drawn from parsing work within uBio and, with permission from the Harvard University Herbarium, from a database of botanical author abbreviations compiled there. It includes the botanical abbreviations list compiled by Brummitt and Powell, 1992 as well as many other sources. Some of these names are also available via an HTTP interface at IPNI.

There are over 138,000 records in the database representing over 34,000 groups of names.

The database can be queried with the following input parameters:

SOAP example keyword searchAuth a search string ex: "Linn." qualifier searchQualifier contains | exact | regexp limit limitBP limits the query to Brummitt and Powell only output returnXML if true, SOAP output is an XML string, not a serialized SOAP object

There are two web service methods available via the NameBank web service.

namebank_search_authors Searches the author dataset by string and returns a SOAP object or an XML-formatted string namebank_object_authors Retrieves an author group by primary key and returns a SOAP object or an XML-formatted string

A string search returns three data elements.

• matching string
• default display record
• group ID

The default display record is formatted as "family name, given name(s)" ("Linnaeus, Carl") for individuals and the most fully representative names for groups ("Quoy and Gaimard").

The group ID that is returned in a search can be used to retrieve an authorObject. The author Object contains four nested elements.

• A date range, for example, "1865-1900" represents the authors lifetime and may be useful in disambiguating similar names.
• group ID
• One or more author strings that represent variations in format and spelling of the author or group. Each author string has the following attributes
  • the name string itself (ex. "Linnea Stewart Gillman")
  • an attribute ID (1-6) that qualifies the string
    • 1 = default display form
    • 2 = Harvard University Herbarium format
    • 3 = Brummitt and Powell format
    • 4 = lexical variant originating in the source HUH database
    • 5 = lexical variant originating in uBio version of the database
    • 6 = misspelling of name originating in uBio version of the database
  • option annotations related to the specific author string entry (currently not output with SOAP object).
• A Bibliography of one or more citations representing data sources for author strings within the group.

Authorized persons can add and edit author records. The edit interfaces will only save changes to authorized users who are logged in. To obtain a log-in please email us.