---
id: "worldcat_identities_id"
kind: "datatype"
status: "draft"
is_pii: false
categories: ["objectids"]
langs: ["common"]
quality: 80
url: "http://registry.apicrafter.io/datatype/worldcat_identities_id"
---

# WorldCat Identities ID (`worldcat_identities_id`)

> **Draft.** Draft records have not been reviewed yet and may be incomplete or wrong; do not treat them as authoritative for legal or compliance decisions.

Key of a name page in WorldCat Identities, a retired OCLC research service that summarized the works by and about a person, organization or place. OCLC stopped updating it in July 2022 and replaced it with WorldCat Entities. The key is a prefix and a value - lccn- with a Library of Congress name authority number, viaf- with a VIAF ID, or np-, nc- or ns- with other text. Data Commons still stores it in the worldcatIdentitiesId property, and older datasets keep it.

- Personal data (PII): no
- Categories: Objects identifiers (objectids)
- Countries: global
- Languages: Common to most languages (common)
- Classification: identifier

## Detection

Regular expression (Python `re`):

```
^(?:viaf-\d+|lccn-n[a-z]?[0-9-]+|n[cps]-.+)$
```

## Examples

- `lccn-n79041717` — California
- `lccn-n91128701` — Belarus
- `lccn-n78-95332` — William Shakespeare
- `viaf-136244923` — Aqua, skyscraper in Chicago
- `n79041717` (invalid example) — bare Library of Congress name authority number without the lccn- prefix

## Translations

- fr: Identifiant WorldCat Identities
- ru: Идентификатор WorldCat Identities

## Sources

- doc: <https://www.oclc.org/research/areas/data-science/identities.html>
- other: <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Properties_for_deletion/P7859>
- other: <https://datacommons.org/browser/worldcatIdentitiesId>

## Quality

Score 80/100. Missing: mapping (Wikidata, Schema.org, ...), detector coverage.

JSON: <http://registry.apicrafter.io/api/v1/datatypes/worldcat_identities_id.json> · Edit: <https://github.com/apicrafter/metacrafter-registry/edit/main/data/datatypes/any/objectids/worldcat_identities_id.yaml>