News

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

Based on feedback from OCLC Developer Network members, OCLC is pleased to announce that basic limits on all xIdentifier Web services have been increased to 1,000 queries per day. This increase is intended to facilitate easier use of the JSON-P format now in place, and is effective immediately. OCLC member libraries who also maintain an OCLC cataloguing subscription still remain eligible for higher usage limits at no charge. All other libraries and/or commercial organizations can select the subscription option that best meets their needs.

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?

In case you missed the couple of articles that have come out recently, wanted to call out your attention to a couple of them: OCLC Opens up WorldCat through APIs Marshall Breeding gives a good review of OCLC Web Services, including the WorldCat Search API. Of course, being a Developer Network member and blog reader, you probably know all of this. But if you were looking for an article to give to your manager/Director for WHY you should spend more time on investigating cool mashups and potential usages of OCLC's different APIs, this might be a good one to start with. (reposted from ALA TechSource, who reposted from the February 2010 issue of Smart Libraries Newsletter). Querying OCLC Web Services for Name, Subject, and ISBN A nice article from Ya'aqov Ziso, Ralph LeVan, and Eric Lease Morgan---you'll learn more about OCLC Terminology Services, WorldCat Identities and see a few quick implementations for the services, such as Send it to Me. Note that all three writers were attendees at the inaugural mashathon in New York in November 2008! (Of course, since Ralph is from OCLC, he's also attended most of the others, too...) (reposted from The Code4Lib Journal).