Conferences

Sunday, June 27 OCLC Introduction to Developer Network Wondering what the OCLC Developer Network is and how it might help your library? This session explains why Web services matter to your library, what Web services OCLC has to offer, what the Developer Network is and how you can participate in this community. 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m., OCLC Red Suite (ask at the hotel front desk, or follow the signs) Sunday, June 27 OCLC Developer Network Luncheon Come for lunch on us in an informal setting to hear an update about the OCLC Developer Network, see the apps already built with the WorldCat Basic API, and get the chance to brainstorm with others about new ways to enrich your users' experience with additional data. 12:00 noon - 1:30 p.m., Grand Hyatt Washington, Penn Quarter Room B Register now to reserve your spot at these ALA sessions.

Last week the Developer Network and Liverpool John Moores University hosted a WorldCat Mashathon in Liverpool at Parr St Studios in conjunction with the Liver & Mash Mashed Libraries event. The event was attended by 28 participants from a variety of libraries and OCLC UK. Photo by Bruce Washburn on Flickr The mashathon had a great deal of discuss about the various web services. Because of participant interest, I ended up talking about several newer services which we hadn't planned on covering. Dewey.info which is the top three levels of the Dewey Classification system as Linked Data and VIAF.org (Virtual International Authority File) which brings together authority data from libraries several national libraries around the world, were both of interest. As was the QuestionPoint Knowledge base web service. One day mashathons are always harder on the participants because there is less time to create functional code. Still we had two participants who were able to generate some basic code. George Bingham from the OCLC UK OLIB team, used WorldCat Identities to enhance the authority list display in the OLIB OPAC. Both by linking from the authority screen to Identities and by incorporating information from Identities into the authority screen. John Salter from the University of Leeds, used the xISBN service to find various editions of a book to place into their Reading List system. Using xISBN he could indicate in a reading list that a newer addition of the book existed and could be ordered. In addition, my colleague Bruce Washburn was able to spend some time working on his "Wise Guy" app for Android phones. Wise Guy uses the relatively new QuestionPoint Knowledge base web service. The app takes a term and finds a random question and answer pair within the QuestionPoint Knowledge base which match the term. Other mashathon participants kicked around ideas for applications but didn't complete writing code. In particular Julian Cheal from UKOLN had idea of mashing up date from WorldCat Search API, and Netflix to provide access to movies with a particular actor or actress which was quite interesting.

Quick reminder that the WorldCat Mashathon UK is close approaching. If you haven't yet registered for it, better get yourself sorted now. The details: Thursday, 13 May Parr Studio 2, Liverpool, UK Held in conjunction with Liver and Mash on Friday, which is full already but our Thursday event still has a few slots available. 20 pounds to cover breakfast, lunch and tea breaks. If you can't attend, you can still follow the action from both days on twitter. #livtweet

Clear your diary now for the WorldCat Mashathon UK event, planned for 13 May in Liverpool, UK. We're co-producing the mashathon with the Mashed Libraries group--so it's a Liver and Mash Mashathon 2-day extravaganza. Of course, you can come for either day and not the other if you'd like--but while you're there you might as well enjoy both days of coding fun. Note there are only 13 slots left for the Liver and Mash event on Friday--but plenty of room still for the Mashathon on Thursday. Here's what you can expect from the day: WorldCat Mashathon UK - Thursday 13 May The Mashathon will follow a similar format as previous events in Melbourne, Seattle , Amsterdam and New York. Participants will spend the day learning about, brainstorming and coding mash-ups to take advantage of all that WorldCat , the world's largest and most comprehensive bibliographic database from OCLC, has to offer. OCLC UK staff will kick off the session, and OCLC Developer Network manager Karen Coombs and OCLC Research engineer Bruce Washburn will present and be available for questions and breakout facilitation. Ideas and outcomes from the Mashathon, together with a participants list, will be shared during and after the event for others to download and build on. Get more details on the WorldCat Mashathon UK on the OCLC Developer Network site. Liverpool Tweetup - Thursday 13 May (optional) Join the Liverpool Twitter community from 6pm at Brew Tea Shop, Bold St, Liverpool. Enjoy some acoustic tunes, refreshments and good conversation. Follow the action from both days on twitter. #livtweet Liver and Mash - Friday May 14 A lively programme will include speakers from the libraries and museums sector, as well as local businesses engaged in mashups. A range of lightning talks will leave you struggling to choose which to attend, following by a delightful selection of practical workshops hosted by experts to whet your mashing appetites. Get the full programme from the Liver and Mash site. Plan to attend these two fabulous days at one single venue. Note to bring your laptop, as there are no PCs at Parr St! Register now for both events The registration is 20 quid and includes breakfast, lunch and tea breaks. The venue promises to be cool, as ColdPlay, Moby and others have played there. Who wouldn't want to code where ColdPlay has trod?

The Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) Tech Lab in Boston, MA, USA is offering a free one-hour workshop on the various WorldCat APIs tomorrow, April 9, 2010 from 1-2 pm EDT. Here is more information about the free one-hour workshop from the Event Brite listing:

If you're looking for a quick, hourlong introduction to OCLC Web Services, reserve the 2:00-3:00 p.m. Central Time slot TODAY--April 1, 2010. You'll hear Karen show the various services in action like the WorldCat Search API, the WorldCat Basic API, WorldCat Registry APIs, xISBN, xISSN, WorldCat Identities and more. The OCLC Web Services Webinar is part of WiLS's long-standing "Library Open Solutions" series, and it's open to anyone who would like to attend. (WiLS and MINITEX members get an even better rate.) There is a fee to attend--but it covers the registration and recordings for all 6 of the sessions, and one seat can be shared for a whole library. So in this way, it brings the cost down to a reasonable amount per person.

Roy, Alice and I are here at code4lib 2010 to teach a preconference, OCLC Web Services and Lightning Talk Demos. I'm also presenting a session tomorrow (Tuesday) before lunch, 7 Ways to Enhance Library Interfaces with OCLC Web Services. If you are going to be at code4lib, we'll see you here in Salon C1. If you're not able to attend, follow the conference tweetstream. You can download the presentations at least.

Roy, Bruce and Don have promised to blog their thoughts and post photos from the OCLC API Mashathon that happened today at VALA 2010, but the jet lag was likely catching up with them after a full day of mashing.

That's right. If you're heading to VALA in Melbourne, Australia and haven't signed up for the VALAtech Boot Camp Sessions, there's still 2 weeks left to submit your application.

Packed room for Developer Network luncheon. Great to see the male/female ratios are normalizing, too, for developer events. Looks like turkey sandwiches were more popular than chicken, and chicken was more popular than veggie, and veggie more popular than ham. Who knew? Don is walking everyone through the available Web Services, and giving a few examples of how people are using them. Also very fun to see a few Mashathon/Hackathon alumni--yeah! Almost all hands went up when Don asked about WorldCat.org usage, too. It's easier to wrap your head around what the WorldCat Search API can do when you're familiar with WorldCat.org. Cyril Oberlander from SUNY Genesco showing off the IDS Search Project, which uses the WorldCat Search API. Catalog is going to be beta-tested with 6 libraries starting on Monday. Cyril notes it will be out in the open for everyone to play with. Written in PHP--shows off the visual aspect with the Yahoo Spellcheker, GoogleBooks API, WorldCat Search API. Once you go into a detailed record, it can give you availability (through screen-scraping AND Z39.50). It also gives an estimated delivery date, depending on where the item is located (immediately, 3 days for consortia members, 7 days for worldwide). The consortial catalog benefits us as a group. Mike Curtis gets kudos. Other uses of WorldCat Search API: The Getting It Search (GIST) and a Gift/Weeding app. (I started taking video at that point). Michael Panzer from OCLC Dewey shows off the Dewey Linked Data set (Dewey.info). Lots of cool apps, and oohs and aaahs from a new Shelf Label API he's working on. (More coming about that, soon.) WorldCat Registry APIs and exposure through end-user interfaces...take home is: Check your Registry profile and make sur eit's up-to-date and correct, so end-users and other libraries find you correctly. Mashathons: if anyone wants to host the Autumn 2010 Mashathon, please let us know! Don introduces Karen Coombs as the Developer Network product manager. Hooray! Karen jumped up to show off some of the work from her ALA MW 2010 LITA preconference. Also, here are all the workshops slides, demo code, documentation and more from Karen. I'll post the videos soon and if you have questions, please comment here or let us know. Presentations are now available on the Developer Network wiki.