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Join the OCLC Developer Network at Midwinter in San Diego

If you're planning to be in San Diego for the ALA Midwinter 2011 meeting, you'll want to put a couple of dates on your calendars now for developer-related events:

Saturday, January 8
The Power of Data, Technology and Community: the OCLC Platform Strategy

Submitted by librarywebchic on Tue, 12/28/2010 - 4:17pm
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VIAF now includes Corporate Names

For those you who haven't seen Thom Hickey's blog post, VIAF not includes corporate names. Conference names, which strongly overlap corporate names, are included in VIAF's corporate names. The corporate matching is not as mature as personal names, and OCLC will be refining it over the coming months. We know there are errors and would appreciate it if you would report any errors you see to help us improve the matching.

Submitted by librarywebchic on Mon, 12/06/2010 - 2:40pm
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Save the date: next WorldCat Mashathon set for April 7-8, 2011

We've heard from lots of people who want a chance to attend a WorldCat Mashathon--or host one. We LOVE to do them, see the results and most importantly meet all the outstanding developers out there in libraryland. So we're happy to announce that the next WorldCat Mashathon will take place Thursday and Friday, April 7-8, 2011. But where, you ask? The lack of a specific location reflects a different approach we're trying out with the next mashathon. It's going to be distributed among several locations. The idea is that this approach will make it easier to participate no matter where you live--and be a test bed to see if your library might want to be a host location in the future. Because this is the first time doing it this way, the Mashathon will be held at the same time in three different OCLC offices:
  • Washington, DC
  • Columbus, OH
  • San Mateo, CA
How will it work?
  • We plan to webcast the presentation and hands on activity portions of the mashathon to all locations.
  • Participants at each location to have time to work collaboratively on projects together.
  • Each location will have members of the Developer Network team there in person to act as hosts and answer questions.
  • We'll use chat, IRC, video conference, and webcasting to facilitate communication between participants at all three locations. If a participant has a question that requires a particular person's expertise, then we'll get together virtually.
  • Groups will have a chance to present their Mashathon project(s) and we'll webcast the "Show and Tell" wrap-up back to the other locations and the Web at large.
This is a grand experiment for the Developer Network, but it seems well worth it if it gives you the chance to attend a mashathon with fewer travel expenses and more opportunities to collaborate with other far-flung developers. Rest assured we're working hard on the technology aspects of hosting a distributed mashathon so you have the best experience possible. I'm sure we'll all learn a lot, regardless. And in the spirit of mashathons, we'll have a lot of fun no matter what. Registration will be available early in 2011. But mark your calendars now for April 7-8 at a location near you! For our European colleagues and fellow developers, we're also planning a European mashathon in 2011. Stay tuned for that announcement, coming soon.
Submitted by librarywebchic on Mon, 12/06/2010 - 11:01am
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Hosted version of EZproxy now available from OCLC

Calling all EZproxy admins! Happy Hanukkah and Christmas came early this year: OCLC EZproxy is now available as a hosted service. So you no longer have to maintain all the database tables and configuration files yourself, unless you just like doing it. Five libraries have been in pilot with the hosted service since April 2009, and they've helped the cooperative work out any kinks in the system. EZproxy now joins other OCLC services available as hosted versions, including CONTENTdm and ILLiad. What do you stand to gain from moving to the EZproxy hosted service? From the official announcement:
  • Timely addition of new databases
  • Reduced reliance on technical staff for initial configuration or ongoing configuration file changes
  • Peace of mind with a secure environment and security for user information
  • 24/7/365 access monitoring and reporting on usage
  • Elimination of local proxy server (or other hardware) maintenance
  • Automatic updating for bi-annual enhancements
So you'll always run the latest and greatest version--currently 5.3. And OCLC supplies the security certificate, too. In case you're curious, the deployment on cooperative's end is on Linux VM services at the OCLC data center. It currently has more than 2,200 VMs deployed as of 17 November. There are full diesel and battery back-ups for the data center and two commercial power feeds...just in case someone upstream gets crazy with a backhoe--you don't lose your eContent access. EZproxy hosted service sits alongside other recent OCLC innovations to help make it easier (and cheaper) to manage and provide access to eContent, including the WorldCat knowledge base, licensed resource management, and integrated link resolution. Learn more about the EZproxy hosted version at one of a couple introductory Webinars. New and current EZproxy users are encouraged to attend: To get a price quote for your institution to move to the hosted version, send your name, institution and FTE or community served to EZproxy [AT] oclc.org.
Submitted by alicesneary on Thu, 12/02/2010 - 11:13am
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Mashathon demos get incorporated at libraries

One of the scripts which I wrote as a mashup demonstration used the New York Times Bestseller API to add Best Seller indicators and links to a full record screen being generated via data from the WorldCat Search API. Michael Beccaria at Paul Smith College in upstate NY has taken my prototype script and revamped and incorporated it into their VuFind powered library catalog.

Submitted by librarywebchic on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 1:17pm
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AutoSuggest Implementations Abounds

Over the course of the last 6 months, autosuggesters have been making an appearance many places in library user interfaces. OCLC Research has piloted auto suggest functionality in a development version of Identities and in VIAF. The Identities autosuggest functionality is outlined in issue 9 of code4lib journal article. Currently, the Identities autosuggest is experimental. VIAF also includes an autosuggest feature which can be seen on viaf.org .

Submitted by librarywebchic on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 11:29am
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WorldCat Mashathon Boston 2010 Show and Tell

groupphoto.JPGWell well well, WorldCat Mashathon Boston, sponsored by the OCLC Developer Network, Brandeis University and Microsoft seems like ages ago, I know--and you've patiently waited for the

Submitted by alicesneary on Wed, 11/03/2010 - 11:26pm
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LITA Online Course on mashups and APIs, coming in November

November 15-19 I'm co-teaching an online course with Jason Clark on mashups and APIs. The class, which is being offered by LITA, will cover lots of different Web services out there for libraries and library developers to use. The class is meant for people who are just starting out and are curious to learn more--people who may have heard about Web Services and now want to build their knowledge and abilities from the ground up. Know someone like this? Invite them! Or it could be a good refresher course for more seasoned staff, too. We'll start simple by defining mashups and APIs. There will be lots of examples about what's been done and what's possible. Participants will see some low-fi API and widgets including nifty things that can be accomplished with WorldCat lists and widgets, Google Spreadsheet API and Yahoo Pipes. You'll get a whole session on APIs for bibliographic data, too. You'll hear me cover many of the OCLC Web services (surprise!) including the WorldCat Search API, xIdentifier Services, and WorldCat Identities. Last but not least, you'll learn about about geolocation, news and media APIs, too. There will be lecture portions, but you'll also get lots of code examples and time for discussion. If you have been looking for a more focused and hands-on learning experience with mashups and APIs--but haven't been able to attend a WorldCat Mashathon--then this course is for you. Thanks to LITA for sponsoring the session, and asking me to teach it with the "help build the library developer community" hat on for OCLC. I have learned so much from other people--and now am glad to share my learning. Note there is a fee for the course, and you can register for it on the LITA Web site.
Submitted by librarywebchic on Wed, 10/27/2010 - 7:58am
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Friday Office hours come to the Developer Network

Remember back in your undergraduate days, when professors would host office hours? You could go in and visit, ask questions, talk story and generally work on projects together. Well now Office Hours are officially coming to the OCLC Developer Network. Come chat (virtually) with Karen on Fridays in November and ask questions, get help and generally just talk about Web Services or library-developer related topics from 3:00pm - 5:00pm ET (12 noon to 2:00 pm PT). November dates include:
  • 5 November 2010
  • 12 November 2010
  • 19 November 2010
You'll see the chat window or link on the Developer Network home page when Office Hours are happening. If there is interest, we will explore making additional hours available for European developers, too.
Submitted by alicesneary on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 3:25pm
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Recent enhancements made to the WorldCat Search API

All you Developer Network listserv watchers--which I assume is most of you--you will already have heard this news about the WorldCat Search API. But for the rest of us, just in case you missed it when it went out in September... For the record, the WorldCat Search API was enhanced to make a few updates and corrections. Here's the list: 1) The LCCN provided in the RSS and Atom formats now works correctly for all LCCNs including those with one or two character prefixes.

Submitted by alicesneary on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 2:31pm
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The OCLC Developer Network supports the use of OCLC Web Services—a set of tools and APIs that expose data and services for WorldCat and our member libraries and partner institutions or companies. learn more »

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