WorldCat Mashup profiled on New York Times blog

Here at the Developer Network, we were excited to learn yesterday about a mashup which features WorldCat and the New York Times APIs was highlighted on the First Look New York Times blog. The mashup--created Wade Guidry, the Library Technology Coordinator at the Collins Memorial Library at the University of Puget Sound, and a WorldCat Mashathon Seattle attendee --is done using Yahoo Pipes and draws data (ISBN) from the NYT best seller API to create links to each of the best-selling books in Worldcat.org. Because the New York Times has several Best Seller lists, Mr. Guidry has created several Pipes.

• hardcover fiction
• hardcover nonfiction
• paperback nonfiction

The library at University of Puget Sound is also incorporating the links to the best sellers lists into their library catalog. The project just goes to show what a little coding know-how can do to improve experiences for library users. One things I'd like to be able to do is to build on this idea and write a script that uses the WorldCat Search API to check and see if a library has holdings for a particular item. If so, then create a link to that library's particular catalog. If not, then create a link to WorldCat.org. Also covers would be a great addition and could be pulled from Open Library or the LibraryThing API. I've got the basic framework sketched out but we're still getting ready for the VALAtech Boot Camp OCLC API Mashathon next Monday. Keep checking back--I should a working version posted in the next couple of weeks.