Doing More with Less: Mash Your Way to Productivity

Doing More with Less:Mash your Way to Productivity,[object Object],Kevin Reiss,[object Object],University Systems Librarian,[object Object],Office of Library Services,[object Object],City University of New York,[object Object],SLA-NY Panel 1-21-2010,[object Object]

Mashups are more than just:,[object Object]

Why Mashups?,[object Object],Low-cost/low-risk development,[object Object],Rapid development cycle,[object Object],Do something fresh quickly,[object Object],Typically do not require a huge amount of staff time,[object Object],Utilize someone else’s computing power, i.e. “the cloud”,[object Object],More and more information service providers are enabling their content to be “mashable”,[object Object],Subscription content vendors,[object Object],“Free” Internet services,[object Object]

What is a Mashup?,[object Object],A web application that combine data and code from content sources out on the web to produce:,[object Object],Modest improvements to an existing web services (ex: embedded a list of relevant links from a third party service in an existing websites),[object Object],An entirely new web application,[object Object],Mashups are typically made up of both:,[object Object],Local Content,[object Object],Remote Content,[object Object],A mashup is composite web application,[object Object],Can be thought of as “Remixing the web”,[object Object],Presents the user with a new view or service built on top of existing data and services,[object Object],Executed with lightweight web programming techniques,[object Object],Web services,[object Object],Application Programming Interfaces (APIs),[object Object]

What do you need to know (technically speaking)?,[object Object],Basic HTML,[object Object],Widgets,[object Object],“<embed>” a service or data,[object Object],RSS ,[object Object],Collating and parsing feed data is an integral part of many mashups,[object Object],Many “web services” return data as feeds,[object Object],Basic javascript,[object Object],Work with simple APIs and XML as a data format,[object Object],Server side scripting languages,[object Object],Allows you to fully interface with APIs in your application,[object Object],Integrate local and remote content on a complex scale,[object Object]

Who’s Doing It?,[object Object],Just about everyone,[object Object],Yahoo,[object Object],Many services,[object Object],Google,[object Object],Book/MAPS,[object Object],Amazon ,[object Object],Libraries and library content vendors,[object Object],Federated search providers/designers (these maybe the original library mashup),[object Object],Even the Library of Congress - http://id.loc.gov/authorities/,[object Object]

Web Services at Yahoo,[object Object]

Web Services at OCLC,[object Object]

App Services at flickr,[object Object]

What Does one Look Like? – A Google Maps Mashup,[object Object]

Or This? A Twitter Mashup,[object Object]

Which is possible because:,[object Object],Which brings you to RSS:,[object Object],Which is the basis for everything on the last slide,[object Object]

Mashup Building Blocks,[object Object],Data that lives somewhere on the web and a good idea on what to do with it,[object Object],Feeds (RSS, Atom, RDF) are often the key ingredient,[object Object],Websites as a service provide content in:,[object Object],XML,[object Object],JSON,[object Object],Code that lives on the web,[object Object],Application Programming Interfaces,[object Object]

Mashup Levels,[object Object],Basic,[object Object],Widget Based Mashups,[object Object],Intermediate,[object Object],Working with feeds,[object Object],Working with a mashup aware editor (ex: Yahoo Pipes),[object Object],Advanced,[object Object],Working with Web Services,[object Object],Working with Application Programming Interfaces (APIs),[object Object],Building your own web application,[object Object]

Widgets,[object Object],The Simplest Mashups,[object Object]

The Simplest Mashups,[object Object],Widgets,[object Object],No coding required,[object Object],Copy and paste,[object Object],May need security clearance to run remote javascript hosted on the widget providers web server,[object Object]

Explore Widgets at delicious,[object Object]

Widgetize Your Content,[object Object]

Copy and Paste,[object Object],<script type="text/javascript" src="http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/js/my.delicious.account?title=My%20Delicious%20Bookmarks&icon=m&count=5&sort=date&tags&extended&name&showadd"></script>,[object Object],Into the webpage of your choice,[object Object]

Embedded Delicious,[object Object]

Librarything Widgets,[object Object],Get Your Widget,[object Object],Select Your Options,[object Object]

Which Can Give You:,[object Object],The Widget,[object Object],Embeddable Code,[object Object],This strategy works for youtube, google video, flickr, and most of the “social” web,[object Object]

Feed Based Mashups,[object Object],Repackaging and Repurposing Data,[object Object]

Feed-based Mashups,[object Object],General strategy:,[object Object],Identify a bunch of feeds you want to keep track of,[object Object],Organize them or mine them for useful data,[object Object],Process them regularly,[object Object],Keep track of when they fail,[object Object],Present the results back to your users,[object Object]

Basic Feed Content,[object Object],RSS - http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/ols.inside?count=15,[object Object],JSON - http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/json/ols.inside?count=15,[object Object]

Basic Example - Community Planet or the Feed of Feeds,[object Object]

Experiment with Feeds and Yahoo Pipes (http://pipes.yahoo.com),[object Object],No coding required,[object Object],A good place to experiment with and identify a mashup strategy with little risk or effort,[object Object],Clone the pipes of other users to get started,[object Object],When you are done with your pipe you send the ouput to:,[object Object]

Pipes Interface – Sorting Pubmed Query Feeds,[object Object],Drag and Drop ,[object Object],Programming,[object Object]

Using Feeds in the Library,[object Object],Use feeds to aggregate search results from commonly used queries,[object Object],Create a bundle of search results important to your organizations,[object Object],Use feeds to show new publications/titles,[object Object],Combine with Amazon or Google Book search to add new content,[object Object],Use feeds to aggregate organizational content,[object Object],Pull together bookmarking services of employees,[object Object],Pull together blogging content from employees,[object Object]

Pipes works with more than just Feeds: Data and Services,[object Object]

Web Services and APIs,[object Object],Programming the Web,[object Object]

The API Building Block: A Restful Web Transaction,[object Object],Find a data source?,[object Object],Ask it a question in the form of a URL?,[object Object],http://myservice.com/?idrequest=myrequestcontent,[object Object],You also have to answer: Am I eligible to get this data?,[object Object],Many APIs/Web Services require a developer or account ID to use hence:,[object Object],http://myservice.com/?id=mydevid&request=myrequestcontent,[object Object],Get data back in XML – often using AsychronousJasvascript and XML (AJAX),[object Object],Parse data with your own local code or the api in question,[object Object],Present parsed data in your application,[object Object],Resources with unique IDs work great in these sorts of transactions,[object Object],http://myservice.com/ISBN,[object Object],http://myarticleservice.com/pubmedid,[object Object]

Example: the Yahoo! SPELL Checking Web Service,[object Object],The Question:,[object Object],The Answer:,[object Object]

Home for this Service,[object Object]

Where it might live? – Example Deployment,[object Object],Response from Yahoo!,[object Object]

A fresher setting,[object Object]

Programming with APIs,[object Object],Typically simple,[object Object],The key is to fail gracefully,[object Object],Make sure what the terms of usage are,[object Object],Many Vendors now Provide APIs,[object Object],Including:,[object Object],Most major social web services (flickr, LibraryThing),[object Object],Most major web sources of “book” data (OCLC, Google Books, Amazon, Open Library),[object Object],Many library software vendors (Examples - Ex Libris, Serials Solutions),[object Object]

Doing More with Less: Mash Your Way to Productivity

Query Worldcat via API,[object Object]

Using the Google Map API: Digital Murray Hill,[object Object],http://murrayhill.gc.cuny.edu,[object Object],Wordpress powered architectural history website,[object Object],Open Source Content Management System (CMS),[object Object],PHP/MYSQL Driven web application,[object Object],Combines a number of content sources,[object Object],Descriptive architectural metadata ,[object Object],Geocoding for local addresses,[object Object],Google maps content,[object Object],flickr content,[object Object]

Coding with the Google Map API,[object Object],Setting a Map Icon,[object Object],Setting the Map Canvas,[object Object]

Flickr Integration,[object Object]

Community Photos,[object Object]

Mashup Wrap-Up,[object Object],Things to Remember about Mashups,[object Object]

Mashups and Content Management Systems?,[object Object],Is your current web content management system (CMS) mashup friendly?,[object Object],Open source CMS systems are ideal vehicles from which to explore mashups at a substantive level,[object Object],Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, etc.,[object Object],All of the above have extensions that support many of the most popular mashup data formats, data providers, and apis,[object Object]

A Good Place to Start,[object Object]

Wordpress Dashboard,[object Object],Wordpress Delicious Widget,[object Object]

Mashup Issues,[object Object],Dependence on data or code that in some part you do not control,[object Object],Security Policies can change,[object Object],Access policies can change,[object Object],Usage limits on key-based apis,[object Object],Legal Implications,[object Object],Make sure to read the terms of service for any service you expect to make public,[object Object],Most non-commercial issues are fine,[object Object]

What can I do?,[object Object],See if your major information service providers:,[object Object],Provides feeds,[object Object],Try aggregating them in some useful fashion,[object Object],Experiment with <embed> options from services like Youtube or Slideshare in order to expand and highlight interesting organizational content,[object Object],Experiment with the major social web services:,[object Object],Identify a “social” aspect in your organization that already exists,[object Object],See if you can aggregate it and produce a useful new view of the data,[object Object],Code your own mashup using apis,[object Object]

Check out Library Mashups,[object Object],Visit the Programmable Web,[object Object],http://programmableweb.com/,[object Object],Library Related APIs,[object Object],http://techessence.info/apis,[object Object],Pro Web 2.0 Mashups by Raymond Yee,[object Object],http://blog.mashupguide.net,[object Object],Library Mashups by Nicole Engard,[object Object],http://mashups.web2learning.net/,[object Object],In particular visit the link compilation at:,[object Object],http://mashups.web2learning.net/links,[object Object]

Are my services and data mashable?,[object Object],Does my own website provide feeds?,[object Object],Can my users <embed> content from our major services?,[object Object],Have we selected services and software that play well with mashups?,[object Object]

Conclusions,[object Object],Choose web resources that are mashable when you can,[object Object],Support for this is growing among web content providers,[object Object],Mashups can:,[object Object],Cost little beyond staff time,[object Object],Be fun and easy to create,[object Object],Be throwaway work that achieve substantial results,[object Object],Add value in unexpected ways,[object Object],Develop into essential services,[object Object]

Doing More with Less: Mash Your Way to Productivity

Doing More with Less: Mash Your Way to Productivity

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Doing More with Less: Mash Your Way to Productivity