Mashathons

If you've been dragging your feet on signing up for the WorldCat Mashathon Boston, then time to get in gear. We're set to have a great two days with lots of good ideas floating around. Plus the setting at the Microsoft NERD Center...or maybe the view of the Charles River...is sure to inspire.

Isn't that what Paul Revere yelled while he rode? Something like that, anyway. Well if you haven't heard, the next WorldCat Mashathon is coming up soon--next month in fact. In Boston. Beantown. Home of the Red Sox, Celtics and many many technical geniuses. And we're teaming up with a few of those geniuses at Brandeis University and Microsoft to bring you the next cool event for library developers and people interested in making libraries better through technology: WorldCat Mashathon Boston Thursday and Friday, Sept 23-24, 2010 9 am-5 pm Microsoft New England R&D Center, One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142 Participants will spend the two days brainstorming and coding mash-ups with local systems and other Web services to take advantage of all that WorldCat, the world's largest and most comprehensive bibliographic database, has to offer. Check out and be inspired by apps produced from previous mashathons. We'll have staff on hand to walk you through the different APIs and help you think through possible scenarios and solutions. Coders and noncoders (but idea generators) are welcome. Bring your laptop, ideas and curiosity--and we¹ll supply breakfast, lunch and snacks. We will also facilitate forming dinner groups for Thursday night. Every participant will also receive a commemorative Mashathon t-shirt. Register now

OK, so it isn't Rock 'n Roll. So sue me. But just as rockers can have fun doing what they love, so can library coders. And this Thursday and Friday, that's exactly what a bunch of us will be doing in Seattle -- having fun.

The news is already out, but we definitely need to announce it here as well -- November 7-8 in New York City we will be having our first WorldCat Hackathon at the Science, Industry, and Business Library of NYPL. Our co-host is NYPL Labs. It should be a lot of fun and all of us at OCLC Grid Services are very much looking forward to it.