The final project of Musuem Information Management focused on how to link digital archival records and objects on SNAC (Social Networks and Archival Context). Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky) is a diverse, renowned fashion and portrait photographer. When I started the research by assessing the current records associated with “Man Ray” in the SNAC database, I was surprised to find that SNAC shows 4 results of Man Ray. Only one is about Man Ray. Another 3 of them related to Man Ray, but it is about his spouse, Juliet Man Ray. There is no his born name Emmanuel Radnitzky in the SNAC. 

Permalink: http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64j0gzx
Ark ID: w64j0gzx
SNAC ID: 52092634

I conducted research to find various repositories with information related to Man Ray for two gaps: less  Introduction/ Biography and less  Archives. I attempted to give as full a picture of the prolificness of Man Ray’s life and work as possible. 

The related descriptions links Virtual International Authority File, WorldCat Identities, LC Name Authority File and Wikidata do not include a comprehensive biographical information. Museum of Modern Art  (MoMA) and Wikiart, both archive Man Ray collection and link to sufficient biographies from Man Ray’s Wikipedia. The other is from his Getty edu. There two biographies could be combined to be a sufficient and all-inclusive biography.

This project required the application of API best practices, named entity reconciliation, and an understanding of controlled vocabularies for name resolution. I extracted the data through API to fill in the gaps in the SNAC data with data I found from the external repositories. This project showcases my ability to show how the data discovered in other repositories enriches the data in SNAC - You can explain this via human readable records from the external repositories.