The Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) is an international authority file. It is a joint project of several national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). The project was initiated by the German National Library and the Library of Congress.
The aim is to link the national authority files (such as the German Name Authority File) to a single virtual authority file. Here, the data sets together and identical records in a concordance file link. A VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the schedules from the records of the files involved and refers to the original authority records. The data are made available online and are available for research, data exchange and data sharing are available. To update the data sets the OAI protocol is the Open Archives Initiative uses.