We will continue the exploration of the potential future convergence, or at least linkage, between identities as established by campus-based identity management systems on one hand, and personal names as used in the context of scholarly communication, citation, and bibliographic control name authority on the other. Historically, these worlds have been almost completely separate and highly insular, but the emergence of sophisticated author rights retention strategies, institutional and disciplinary repositories, advanced bibliometrics and webmetrics, faculty activity tracking and research management systems, and directories and social discovery systems in academic settings, are clearly bringing them into closer alignment. Connections to public history, genealogy, and prosopography or large-scale biography are also fast emerging, essentially recognizing potential continuity between forward-looking infrastructure and historical documentation. We are also seeing bridges being established between resources of a primarily academic nature and tools used by the broad public (including Wikipedia). A very important development that CNI is helping to advance is the work towards a National (and ultimately international) Archival Authorities Infrastructure.
Numerous systems, databases, and initiatives that are relevant to parts of this program, such as the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID), the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI), the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), VIVO, and new developments within Web of Science, Microsoft Academic Search, Google Scholar, and other platforms, are making this an extraordinarily dynamic and exciting area.