Resource of the Week -- Notable Names Database (beta)
Resource of the Week -- Notable Names Database (beta)
By Adrian Janes, Contributing Editor
Sometimes a resource is worth bookmarking for its potential as much as its current usefulness. An example of this is the beta version of the Notable Names Database (NNDB). In part, this serves as a reference tool for some quick biographical fact-checking. It must be admitted that, at present, coverage can vary greatly. Some entries simply note the basics (e.g. Date of Birth, Birthplace, Occupation, Religion). Others also include fairly detailed biographical accounts, and bibliographies or filmographies of varying degrees of comprehensiveness. (Oddly, musicians don’t seem to have discographies included at all.)
The NNDB includes both living and dead people, although the criteria for inclusion are not specified beyond “people we have determined to be noteworthy". The claimed 37,000+ subjects are largely American, but there are also entries on such notables as:
Apart from Living or Dead People, searching can be done through Band Names, Book Titles, Movie Titles or full text.
The NNDB states that it “mostly exists to document the connections between people”. However it also works well in linking people to their works. For example, a search in Book Titles for "The Great Gatsby” produces a list of books with ‘great’ in the title but headed by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book and a link to his entry.
This concern with connections is best demonstrated by the site’s most intriguing feature, the NNDB Mapper. This not only includes personal connections (e.g. family, fellow actors or band members, etc.), but it works in the corporate and political fields as well. The connections thus revealed between the latter areas are likely to be much less well-known and yet potentially very significant.
A link to the map for an individual is indicated to the right of his or her entry. Once the subject is loaded at the centre of their map, his or her immediate connections (known as nodes) appear as well. Any of these can in turn be clicked on to indicate their connections, and so on. If the map appears to be getting too complicated, you can ‘isolate’ a subject (i.e making hr or she alone the centre of a map) or ‘prune’ it, which removes nodes that, in the present state of the database, have no further connections. There is also an option to select from a list of nodes when it is particularly long. All of these operations can be carried out simply and swiftly. User involvement is encouraged; from here, you can either create a new map or browse the library of maps created by other users.
Yet this facility also indicates one of the flaws of the NNDB; like the early days of Wikipedia, there is no apparent mechanism or authority in place for assuring the quality of the information. I feel some confidence in the site because personal knowledge of many of the subjects I checked chimes with what the NNDB yields; equally, there are some glaring errors and omissions (e.g., Samuel Beckett’s bibliography ends at least 20 years too soon). But again like Wikipedia, the site positively invites comments and corrections, which is creditable and reinforces my belief that an already valuable resource could grow into something of lasting worth.
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