Announcements

Yes yes, I know...you've heard it all already. But just in case anyone has been trapped under a rock the past couple of days:

WorldCat.org now has Linked Data!

All the documentation and sample code has been updated as part of the May 20 release. All systems are go. Let us know if you're finding new quirks with the enhancements to any of the services.

Not too long ago, Karen explained that we were growing here at Developer Network--not only with all the new services being made available through the Platform, but also with people and staff to make things happen. I am happy to announce that we have filled both positions and are excited to get even more things cooking for you. So with that, I want to introduce Andrea (pronounced Ann-drea as opposed to Ahn-drea), who can tell you about herself, in her own words:

The planned install this weekend has a number of enhancements designed to make your life better, as a developer. Of course, I say this with a caveat because it still feels like step 2 of 132 that we have envisioned for having all the services look, act and smell the way we want them to. But, “walk before you run” is what we keep telling ourselves.

What you need to know:

Principle to Principal

Small but important change for all WorldShare (WMS) APIs except NCIP:

If you've built an app that uses OCLC numbers, here's the official "heads up" that they're expanding next year, and you may need to modify your code:

You all know that I've been hard at work here at OCLC--pretty much since the day I arrived--to create the Developer Network site and make it useful, functional and helpful for you, the library development community. And helpful for anyone else who ventures over, like partners or non-technical librarians, who might need some information about APIs, widgets or what-have-you.

Whoop whoop! In case you missed the announcement yesterday, OCLC Research has now made a downloadable version of FAST available, in addition to the Linked Open Data Service. No charge.

What is FAST, you ask?

A big welcome to our first online citation partner from Australia: WriteCite!

From the official announcement:

Welcome to the latest WorldCat.org traffic partner, Designers and Books. Their site is beautiful and simple in a way that only a site with designers in mind can be. It's fun to nose around and see what books famous designers have drawn influence from. And to think perhaps you can read the same thing! On the fancy new ereader you might have gotten over the holidays! (Full caveat: yes, I too have suffered from the delusion that if only I read everything Le Corbustier did, I would be as brilliant as he was. Right?)

You may or may not be aware of a joint project between OhioLINK and OCLC Research to analyze usage patterns of library materials. The primary goal is to better understand the usage patterns of books in academic libraries: what books are (or are not) being used, how many copies are needed, the ideal size of subject collections, etc. The project combines OhioLINK circulation data and WorldCat bibliographic and holdings data together to perform this analysis.