code4lib Day 2 Notes
Mar 3rd, 2008 by Karen
OSS Web-based cataloging tool- Chris Catalfo
This was probably one of my favorite presentation of the conference. Chris Catalfo from LibLime has built a web-based cataloging tool that performs many of the functions that are expected in ILS cataloging tools. It will also do some of the functions I’ve been performing with MARCEdit. Like Z39.50 searching and retrieval of records. I’d love to see the LibraryFind folks borrow this functionality for setting up collections in LibraryFind. Although it only works for MARC records right now there are plans to expand it. (Chris MODS and METS support ASAP please!) When it is expanded I can see this being a terrific tool that staff at UH Libraries could use to help us with our digital library efforts.
Building the Open Library- Aaron Swartz
Open Library
What would an online library look like?
- a wiki with one page per book
Headquartered and funded by Intenet Archive
Infrastructure
- SQL doesn’t work well
- schema changes are painful
- no revision history
- ThingDB (infobase)
- book
- author
- subject
- pages
- name = url
- each thing has a key value table
- Can have specialized information on per book level
- Everything is stored versioned
- everything is a thing
- schema updates are trivial
- all changes can be reverted
- time travel
- Python (infogami)
- object oriented
- get caching for free
- store items and queries in RAM
- on save
- Infogami handles all the scaffolding templating etc
- Put all the templates in the wiki
Data
- Onix records from publishers
- MARC from libraries
- Book reviewers
- Scanning books via the Internet Archive
- flip book interface
Processing Data
Display
- All have pages
- Books
- Author
- Subjects
- can use all the subject vocabularies because it is online
- allow people to browser between different subject heirachy
- Every page is a wiki page that can be edited
- Scan on demand
- Print on demand
- Print books to refill New Orleans public library
What can libraries do?
- Provide their data
- Provide their time
- volunteer to write code
- get paid to write code
- Participate in scan on demand
Open Library API coming soon
- Book page in
- JSON
- RDF
- Get covers from
- LibraryThing
- Amazon
- Publishers
- can get via the API!!
DLF ILS Discovery Interface Task Force API recommendation - Emily Lynema and Terry Reese
This was a good overview of the Digital Library Federation’s Task Force recommendations. I’d been waiting to hear more about this and from what I saw it is a step in the right direction. My biggest fear is what the reaction of the library vendors is going to be and whether or not they will be willing to implement these recommendations. Only time will tell, according to Emily and Terry there is supposed to be a meeting with all the ILS vendors about the recommendations very soon. I’m interested in seeing what develops from that meeting. Feedback on the draft is being solicited via a GoogleGroup. So take a look at the draft and join in the discussion. Also Emily and Terry’s slides which provide a good overview have been posted to the code4lib website.
