I. Technical Impasse: Despite useful software, NameBase is labor-intensive.
Professional librarians call it the "name authority problem." Assume that you could do perfect OCR scans of book indexes. After a few thousand names are collected from a couple dozen books, you might end up with JOHN SMITH, JACK SMITH, JOHN A. SMITH, JOHN ARTHUR SMITH, J.A. SMITH, JOHN SMITH, JR., J. ARTHUR SMITH. Which of these refer to the same person, and which are namesakes? To answer this question, all the names must be considered in context. Sometimes, various editions of Who's Who are needed for further research, or telephone listings on CD-ROM might be used to determine correct spelling.