For assessment purposes, we developed a simple script that could search the DPLA API to get us baseline number of name variants, so we could track progress over time, as the Western Name Authority File encourages partners to update metadata.
The script, developed by Jacob Reed, is available on the Marriott Library github site:
https://github.com/marriott-library/simple-dpla-data-gathering-script
This script was run in 2017 near the beginning of the project and again in 2018 near the end of the project. A comparison of results can be found here.