ER&L Day 1
My ER&L started a little earlier than most folks because I was asked to co-teach a preconference on XML Basic and Applications in the afternoon on Monday. Overall, I think the session went really well. My co-presenter Lisa McAuley covered the basics of XML (well-formedness, validity) and gave participants some hands on time with oXygen. My part of the presentation focused on how XML is being used in libraries. I talked about a bunch of standards (MARCXML, MODS, METS, RSS, Atom), showed some example files, then delved into sources for XML and how that data might be used to enhance library services and user interfaces.
Some of my examples require serious programming, but I also took some time to show people how to manipulate data and create mashups of XML data in Yahoo Pipes. This was fun and got people thinking about the possibilities. Unfortunately, the session ran a bit over so I wasn’t able to share some of the information I wanted with people. Luckily my slides are available so people can look at them after the session.
I also got asked a bit about sources for records in various formats. One of the best sources are Evergreen catalogs which allow you to use OpenSearch to search the catalog records and return results as Atom, RSS, MARCXML, and MODS. Two Evergreen catalogs you can work from are the Georgia PINES and University of Prince Edward Island. To figure out the search syntax, you need to view the Open Search Description file. Which will be at something like http://evergreen-server.address/opac/extras/opensearch/1.1/-/osd.xml