Conferences: August 2009 Archives
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.
