Subject: [CODE4LIB] 2009 WorldCat Mashathon in Amsterdam

From: Roy Tennant <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 13:20:05 -0700

Join fellow coders for a  WorldCat Mashathon in Amsterdam, May 13-14.
Sponsored by the OCLC Developer Network and International Institute of
Social History (IISH), the two-day event will be held Wednesday and Thursday
at IISH headquarters in Amsterdam.

The European Mashathon follows on the heels of a previous WorldCat Hackathon
in New York City. Participants will spend the two days brainstorming and
coding mash-ups with local systems, OCLC Web Services, and many other Web
Services to embellish existing, and create new, library services.

WorldCat includes national catalogues from the Netherlands, the UK, Ireland,
Iceland, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, France, Spain, Switzerland,
Czech Republic, Lithuania, Russia and many more‹so there are plenty of
potential uses and apps just waiting to happen.

Why attend the WorldCat Hackathon?
€ Brainstorm potential uses for and play with the WorldCat Search API.
€ Gain development access to 1.2 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.

Ideas, outcomes and code from the Mashathon, together with a participants
list, will be shared during and after the event for others to download and
build on. 

See <http://worldcat.org/devnet/wiki/2009EUMashathon> for more information
and to register.

Roy Tennant
OCLC Research

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From: Karen Coyle <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 15:11:25 -0700

Roy, can anyone attend, even if not from OCLC member institutions? Also, 
it looks like only member institutions can use the API, but I may have 
mis-read -- is that the case?

kc

-- 
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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
[email-masked] http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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From: Roy Tennant <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 15:18:25 -0700

The WorldCat Mashathon is not limited to OCLC member institutions, and we
certainly had non-OCLC participants at the New York event. We have many
APIs, some of which are open to anyone to use and others that require a key.
Again, depending on the API, for some you may need to qualify for access to
receive a key. We know that we could do a better job making these
distinctions apparent, which is something we'll be trying to clarify. In any
case, everyone who attends will be provided with an OCLC Web Services Key
(WSKey) that will be valid for the period of the event. Those who already
have a key will be welcome to use their existing key as well.
Roy

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From: Karen Coyle <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 16:00:34 -0700

Thanks, Roy. Shortly after you answered I stumbled upon the relevant 
page explaining the difference between full and default service levels:

http://worldcat.org/devnet/wiki/SearchAPIServiceLevels

This is very helpful.
kc

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From: Tim Spalding <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 20:04:26 -0400

Roy,

I know there was some grumbling last time that temporary keys switched
off almost the minute the conference was over. It might be more
attractive if WorldCat committed to allowing mashups built during
mashup events—which aren't in conflict with some rule or otherwise
unattractive to OCLC, but merely show how wonderful WorldCat is—to
remain functional after the event.

Tim

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From: Roy Tennant <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 18:11:50 -0700

Right, but I also want to point out that those service levels only apply to
the WorldCat Search API. We have many other APIs, for which those service
levels don't apply.
Roy

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From: Karen Coyle <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 18:58:23 -0700

Is there a full list of API's somewhere? The only other one I find with 
a search is xISBN... and possibly an ILL API.

kc

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From: Roy Tennant <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 19:25:54 -0700

> a search is xISBN... and possibly an ILL API.

See <http://worldcat.org/devnet/wiki/Services> although we'll be adding
quite a bit to that list over the coming months.
Roy