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. We're sorry you couldn't make it, but we have done this kind of thing before and before, and will do so again (a VALA Bootcamp already scheduled and who knows where/when next).

It's two days of library mashup goodness, fueled by our suite of APIs as well as many others from libraryland and beyond. Out of the two days, we hope to do presentations of options for no more than a quarter of the time, then code like mad, and regroup toward the end to show-off what we've accomplished. Like I said, we're sorry you couldn't make it. But if you're nearby, come. We have slots left and we'd be happy to make your acquaintance. As for the rest of you, if you feel some serious mojo seeping out of Seattle, at least you'll know why.

If you're an information professional in Monterey, CA this week, chances are you're at Internet Librarian. And one of the great mobile-related sessions you won't want to miss this year is being hosted tomorrow by Cindy Cunningham, the Director of OCLC Partner Programs and includes a number of mobile developers. Here's the scoop:

Tuesday, 27 October
1:30-2:30 pm
C203 Putting Your library on a Mobile phone

• Moderator: Cindy Cunningham, Director of OCLC Partner Programs


• Greg Carpenter, CEO & Technical Lead, Boopsie, and WorldCat Mobile Pilot partner


• Bruce Washburn, OCLC Research Engineer and iPhone WorldCat Search API Web App Creator


• Jeff Sharkey, Google Android Developer, Compare Everywhere App

This demo and lively panel discussion highlights what OCLC has learned so far in reaching library users through their mobile phones. Hear from three different developers about how they approached working with WorldCat library data in the mobile format, and how each one designed the optimal user experience­it's so much more than screen size. Learn more about how to approach "going mobile" with your library, what factors to consider from the library side, and see what's possible technically.

If you're interested to attend the WorldCat Mashathon in Seattle next month, it's time to register! There are still plenty of spaces for developers and non-developers who simply want to learn more. In other words, if you're curious about Web Services, APIs or how to create a mash-up, this is a great opportunity for fun, learning and collaboration. Here's a quick run-down of the details:

WorldCat Mashathon Seattle
Sponsored by the OCLC Developer Network and the University Libraries of the University of Washington.
Thursday-Friday, Nov. 5-6, 2009
Odegaard Undergraduate Library, University of Washington campus
Register now

You bring your laptop and ideas, and we'll take care of everything else.
There's a US$ 30 registration fee, but we don't want this fee or your institution's shrinking travel budget to keep you from attending. Please let us know if you're in this situation. We may be able to connect you with other attendees for ridesharing or something similar.

If you're lucky enough to be in Salt Lake City today, chances are you're at the LITA National Forum 2009. I wanted to highlight a couple of sessions that might be of interest to you, as a member of the OCLC Developer Network. Our own Bruce Washburn and CIndy Cunningham will be there, along with a host of other good speakers:

Session Today
Friday, Oct. 2, 4:20-5:30 pm, Alpine West, Hilton Salt Lake City Center
Putting your Library on a Mobile Phone--It's More than Screen Size
Cindy Cunningham (OCLC)

Offering library-based information in a mobile environment is not about exporting your OPAC onto a mobile phone, and there is much more to the user experience than screen real estate. Learn about what mobile library access is really about and how to create an optimal user experience. (Note that Cindy will also be showing the WorldCat Mobile pilot, which is powered by the WorldCat Search API and the WorldCat Registry.

Session Tomorrow
Saturday, Oct. 3, 10:50 a.m. - noon, Alpine West, Hilton Salt Lake City Center
Real Life Experiences with Library APIs
Bruce Washburn (OCLC), Karen A. Coombs (University of Houston)

Have you wondered just what an API is, and what it would mean to use one? Are you thinking of investing effort into building new systems that rely on APIs, or enhancing an existing service with API-provided data? Bruce Washburn will describe the APIs offered by OCLC, and how these are built to support production-level services, global availability, new markets, and web scale activity. Then, Karen Coombs of the University of Houston will discuss the evolution of the Library's use of APIs offered by OCLC in combination with other APIs and the role these currently play in extending information access for the UH community.

Slides for both presentations are out on the LITA site on ALAConnect.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Announcing the next WorldCat Mashathon. Sponsored by the OCLC Developer Network and the University of Washington libraries, the WorldCat Mashathon will be held Thursday and Friday, November 5-6 at Odegaard Undergraduate Library in Seattle, WA.

The Seattle Mashathon will follow the same format as previous events in Amsterdam and New York. You'll spend 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. Developers from the library community and beyond are encouraged to attend.

WorldCat includes materials from libraries around the world, including images, video games, movies, articles, books, maps and more.

Why attend the WorldCat Mashathon?
• Brainstorm potential apps for the WorldCat Search API, our bibliographic grouping services and other OCLC Web services.
• Get a preview of the new WorldCat Basic API.
• Gain development access to 1.4 billion items from more than 10,000 libraries worldwide.
• Integrate these resources with many others to create innovative new services.
• Meet fellow developers across the information industry.
• Share your creative vision and be a part of the next wave of online library development.

Roy will kick off the session, as usual. Fellow OCLC Developer Network staff will also be around to answer questions and help you make best use of your time. You'll come away with a fountain of ideas and good contacts for continuing development. Outcomes and code from the Mashathon will be shared during and after the event, in case you're not able to attend. A small fee of US$ 30 is required, but please contact us if the fee poses a significant hardship.

Learn more and register now for the Mashathon.

Next week is the 2009 Access Conference, hosted by the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, PEI. Long a tradition at that conference has been a full-day Hackfest, where anyone who is interested (you don't have to be a programmer!) gets together to tackle library problems with imagination, whiteboarding, and software.

I've attended a couple of times, and it's always a fun time and you tend to learn quite a bit and meet new people. Unfortunately, due to a schedule conflict, I can't make it this year. But since there may be a problem people are working on that can benefit from having access to OCLC Web Services, we are providing some access keys to the conference to be used not just during the Hackfest, but throughout the conference. As anyone familiar with Access knows, Hackfesters have been known to keep hacking away during odd bits of time and during the evenings while the conference continues. Not me, mind you, but others more dedicated than I. Here's hoping it's successful and a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, I will be flying in on Thursday, hopefully just in time to present "ILS in the Sky With Diamonds" along with Mike Rylander of Evergreen fame. The next day I'll make sure you're thoroughly sick of me by presenting on some work we're doing in OCLC Research to begin to characterize the Hathi Trust collection.

Mashable.com included the Facebook CiteMe app in its recent list of "15 Essential Web Tools For Students". Bruce Washburn built the CiteMe app last year as the WorldCat Search API was being developed.

CiteMe makes use of the API's OpenSearch implementation, and a feature that makes it easy to include pre-formatted citations in the results. On the Developer Network site you can find more information on how to do this. There's also an API feature that will return formatted citations for an individual record, using its OCLC number or an ISBN. Thanks to Rob Casson, The Miami University Library catalog is using this feature to good effect in its "Cite" links in search results and individual record displays.

We're glad to see uses like this of the WorldCat Search API getting more attention, and that these services are being integrated into the web environments of our member libraries.

Back to school time for IT staff at libraries usually involves a handful of new databases to configure and an updated version of EZproxy access and authentication software. This year is no different: the latest version (5.2) is now available. A snippet of the enhancements going on in this release:

• New directive for use in LDAP authentication, which allows the search filters that are used in login to also be used when reading attributes.
• EZproxy now allows vector notation in the user.txt file, to give III systems more flexibility with contact information.
• The sample config.txt updated to include more stanzas for OCLC resources, so it's easier and faster to add a new database to your configuration file.
• See the full list and get the details on all the 5.2 changes.

If you have specific questions about your installation, the EZproxy listserv is usually a good first step.

New limit by holdings for WorldCat Search API
Good news for WorldCat Search API WSkey holders. The WorldCat Search API has been enhanced. You can now limit the results returned to an individual library's holding symbol, without authenticating the application's users, at all service levels. In lots of discussions with developers, people have asked for this feature. Yay, now it's here.

With this functionality update, the eligibility requirements for the WorldCat Search API have also been updated.

NB: ALL 200+ current WorldCat Search API WSKeys will remain active through at least Sept 1, 2010. This eligibility change should affect very few future requests for service. In addition, there is even more good news if your library doesn't currently qualify--or if you're a developer who is not connected to a library.

WorldCat Basic API planned
For a long time now, OCLC has wanted to provide a general Web service to WorldCat in addition to WorldCat.org. This wish is now becoming a reality. Later this year you'll have a simple API into WorldCat that anyone and everyone in the world can use, for noncommercial use. Called the WorldCat Basic API, it provides a mashable access point for lightweight apps built by developers who may or may not have ties to the library community.

The WorldCat Basic API is planned to use OpenSearch and return feeds in Atom and RSS. Results include OCLC number links to WorldCat.org, ISBNs and formatted citations.

We're excited to announce these improvements and updates, expanding the range of developers able to include WorldCat and library data in their apps. Sign up for the Developer Network listserv (WC-DEVNET-L) if you haven't already, to hear when the WorldCat Basic API is available.

You might have noticed the SXSW Panelpicker image on your left. That's right, OCLC has submitted a proposal to be at SXSW Interactive, and we need your help to get selected. The topic is "Discovery, Identity and Rights: Three Deep Web Problems," and it's all about topics that might keep you up at night--authentication, authorization, and access to content not necessarily available through a standard Web search.

Read the proposal for the full details--but the main idea is to make sure libraries are a part of the mainstream Web conversation at SXSW.

Not going to SXSW? No problem. You're still encouraged by conference organizers to make your voice heard. Go to http://bit.ly/vuPu5 and pick the thumbs-up sign. Registration is simple--a standard e-mail confirmation bounceback, and then you can go pick the Deep Web panel (and any others that look interesting.)

The selection process closes on Friday, Sept. 4, so please take a minute today/tomorrow/this week to give OCLC's proposal the "thumbs up."

Lots of discussions going on with the crew working on OCLC Web Services--everything from making our services more mobile-friendly to upcoming API enhancements to long-term vision and plans to make more APIs for more OCLC services.

In the midst of all these discussions, though, we're quite pleased to announce the VALAtech Boot Camp OCLC API Mashathon. Planned for Monday, 8 February as a preconference for VALA2010, the OCLC Developer Network (at least some of us) will be in Melbourne, Australia to help more library developers make the most use of library APIs and Web services.

As the conference site says,

"... participants a firm grounding in a variety of OCLC-provided APIs, including the WorldCat Search API. All of these services are free to qualifying institutions. You will emerge well-prepared to use a rich array of library APIs to enhance your local services."

What the site doesn't say is that we're also sure you'll make connections with a lot of like-minded people, get answers to your questions (we hope) and basically have a great time thinking up new and creative uses for data. Stay tuned.

I just finished reading the article "Using the OCLC WorldCat APIs" in Python Magazine by Mark Matienzo (fondly known as "anarchivist" in his online persona), and I have to say he did an excellent job of describing not only how to use our APIs effectively, but also providing a very accurate and thorough historical context. I really don't think even an OCLC employee could have done any better.

But of course the real value of his piece is his "worldcat" Python module and his explanation and demonstration on how to use it. If you have access to the issue (or buy it for $7), there is even a temporary, limited access key you can use to test his code against our services.

This piece is required reading for any Python programmers wishing to take advantage of our APIs, and highly recommended for anyone else wanting to use our APIs, given his straightforward descriptions of the services and his examples on how he mashed them up along with other APIs (such as Google Maps) to create a useful service. This is exactly why we are offering these services, so it warms the cockles of our CPU to see it happening.

If you're headed to ALA Annual, the American Library Association conference 2009 in Chicago in a couple of weeks, we'd love to see you at the OCLC Developer Network luncheon and the OCLC blog salon. You're invited.

OCLC Developer Network Luncheon
Sunday, July 12
12:00 noon-1:30 pm
InterContinental Hotel, Toledo Room 505 North Michigan Avenue.

Join fellow developers and tech enthusiasts for an informal luncheon. Hear an update about the OCLC Developer Network, the latest Web services and APIs available from OCLC (including authentication services like EZproxy). Brainstorm about new ways to enrich your users' experience with additional data. You'll need to register for it, please.

If you're planning to attend and would like to show off your latest code, drop us a note!

OCLC Blog Salon
Sunday, July 12
5:30-8:00 pm
Chicago Hilton, Boulevard Room C (2nd floor) 720 South Michigan Avenue.

OCLC bloggers have joined forced with the OCLC Developer Network to host the Blog Salon this year. The Shanachies are going to be the special guests, (along with Michael and Jenny) at the LITA President's Program at ALA this year, and then we'll continue the fun at the OCLC Blog Salon.

So the Shanachies (Erik Boekesteijn, Jaap van de Geer, Geert van den Boogaard) will have all their video equipment at the Blog Salon--so come out and meet them and other like-minded bloggers, tweeters, 'tubers, coders, developers and generally anyone interested in tech/social/outreach/frivolity. You may be in the next Shanachie movie!

The Blog Salon is sponsored by OCLC bloggers (official and less so) and the OCLC Developer Network.

Note: even if you're not planning to attend ALA, you can still participate in the Developer Network luncheon via WebEx. I'll post information on how to join in, closer to time.

The Third OCLC Research Software Contest is well underway, but there is still time to enter. See the contest details for complete information. The winning entry will receive $2,500 and an expenses-paid trip to OCLC headquarters in Dublin, OH. Entries are due by the end of June and the winner will be announced before the end of July.

Judging criteria includes:

* Value to libraries, archives or museums
* Use of OCLC services or data
* Originality
* Clean architecture and design

The judges are:

Kevin Clarke, Appalachian State University
Karen Coombs, University of Houston
Thom Hickey, OCLC
Tod Matola, OCLC
Jonathan Rochkind, Johns Hopkins University
Ross Singer, Talis (and the winner of the Second OLC Research Software Contest)
Roy Tennant, OCLC

Don't let this opportunity pass to pick up a cool $2,500 and the chance to have your coding prowess recognized!
Roy Tennant
OCLC Research

We added a few new features to xID service:

- xISSN now supports ISSN-L and RSSURL field, such as
http://xissn.worldcat.org/webservices/xid/issn/1095-9203?method=getMetadata&fl=issnl,rssurl

ISSN-L data is obtained from ISSN agency, and rssurl is obtained from ticTOCS. xISSN also adds values to both data set, for example, xISSN automatically adds RSSURL to all ISSNs in same group.

- xOCLCNUM now supports OCLC workid, such as:
http://xisbn.worldcat.org/webservices/xid/oclcnum/55847258?fl=owi

And you can query by workid as well:
http://xisbn.worldcat.org/webservices/xid/owi/owi718389
I highly recommend using "owi[0-9]" in its whole format when you came upon workid, this will be very helpful for identifying workid from any web pages and facilitates interoperability and mashup.

For more information, please check xISSN and xOCLCNUM API.