From: Subbiah Arunachalam <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2017 21:40:42 +0530 As a scientometricist, I often face the problem of attributing research publications to the right authors. Author names are rendered differently in different publications, e.g. John Maynard Smith or John M Smith or J M Smith or Smith JM. Also, there could be more than one John M Smith. [The same way, names of institutions are also rendered in different ways. To take care of the multiple rendering of institutional names, Clarivate's Web of Science has a field called 'Organization enhanced' or OG. Even that does not capture all name variants.] If all authors of research publications adopt ORCID iD, the name ambiguity problem can be solved. More than a year ago, I and my colleague Muthu Madhan wrote a detailed paper on this issue: [http://www.nmji.in/temp/NatlMedJIndia294227-4257534_114935.pdf] but unfortunately, it does not seem to have reached many people. Academic and research librarians could campaign for the adoption of ORCID iD by all their users. Subbiah Arunachalam http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4398-4658 http://www.researcherid.com/rid/B-9925-2009