Rick Bennett
Lead Software Engineer

Rick joined OCLC Research in 1996. He is currently working on developing and maintaining the FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminologies) database. He developed several interfaces to the FAST data and FAST based functionality, including a Library of Congress to FAST conversion interface (FAST Converter) and a map based interface to FAST geographic authorities (mapFAST). Most recently, he developed techniques to match and link FAST topical authority records to Wikipedia and Wikidata to improve the Linked Data functionality of FAST.
Previously, he developed personal name and geographic matching algorithms for the Virtual International Authority File Project, and has worked on the Web Characterization Project, Pinyin conversion of Chinese records, and the FirstSearch subject thesaurus feature.
Activities
Publications

Linking FAST and Wikipedia
12 August 2016
Rick Bennett, Eric Childress, Kerre Kammerer, Diane Vizine-Goetz

assignFAST: An Autosuggest-Based Tool for FAST Subject Assignment
1 March 2014
Rick Bennet, Edward T. O'Neill, Kerre Kammerer

Using Authorities to Improve Subject Searches
19 December 2013
Edward T. O'Neill, Rick Bennett, Kerre Kammerer

mapFAST: A FAST Geographic Authorities Mashup with Google Maps
25 July 2011
Rick Bennett, Edward T. O'Neill, Kerre Kammerer, JD Shipengrover
Contact Rick