A year ago, I wrote an OpenRefine reconciliation service that queries VIAF and posted the source code on github. I’ve also been hosting it publicly at http://refine.codefork.com for anyone to use.
Below are two charts showing a year’s worth of usage statistics for this service. The first chart counts web requests made. (The way OpenRefine works, a single web request contains up to 10 name reconciliation queries. 200 web requests can translate to as many as 2000 name reconciliations.) The second chart counts the unique hosts (ie. unique computers, more or less) that used the service.
Last month, the busiest one yet, 47 different computers made an average of approximately 2360 name reconciliations each!
This usage has certainly exceeded my expectations. Now and then, I get a very nice tweet or two from someone who’s used it, which is really gratifying, considering it was just a little side project I threw together. You just never know.