Abstract
The name authorities for authors increasingly become important for scholarly communications since a variety of information have been spreading over the web. Author databases and its identifiers have been open in a public. This article focuses on these author databases and identifiers, and surveys them. At first, types of author databases are definitively described. Then, it is explained that these author databases are in a public on the web, and author identifiers have linkages among them, and accuracy of the linkage will be leveraged by author community. Further, the position of author databases is clarified by referencing general people searches. Finally, this article states the importance of author databases and identifiers for future scholarly communication infrastructure.
