or, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk


Library Mashups: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data

   July 2nd, 2009 Brian Herzog

Library Mashups book coverSpeaking of embedding things into library websites, I wanted to highlight a book due out later this year.

In the interest of full disclosure, I contributed a chapter to this book. I don’t get any kickback from the profits (except for a free copy), but I am really looking forward to it.

Library Mashups: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data is written by librarians for librarians, on how we can expand our websites and web presence to better serve our patrons. Nicole Engard pulled us all together and edited the book.

More information about the book and authors is available at http://mashups.web2learning.net. It’s not due out until September, but just skimming the table of contents makes me pretty sure I’ll learn a lot from the other authors.

Writing my chapter made me feel like I was back in library school working on a paper, but I am glad to have done it. Plus, I’ll soon be able to tell people I’m a “published author.” People ask me why I became a librarian, and my answer is always the same: fortune and glory, kid, fortune and glory.

update 7/12/09: a couple new related links:

update 8/20/09
Library Mashups is available to order in the United Kingdom, Europe or British Commonwealth (excl. Canada) from Facet Publishing



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MashupCamp 2007

   January 2nd, 2007 Brian Herzog

Mashup Camp logoA coworker just made me aware of MashupCamp 2007, being held at MIT on Jan 17-18. I’ve been to a few unconferences before, and enjoy the format, so I might attend for that reason alone.

I am interested in mashups, but am probably not as hard-core as the other attendees will be. I’m sure there are ways to make our library catalog more useful by combining it with tools like Baker & Taylor, Amazon, Delicious Library, LibraryThing, Library Elf, and more, if I just had the time to sit and think and experiment. We’ll see.

Another nice feature of MashupCamp 2007 is Mashup University, which is “specifically geared towards hands-on training whereby new and experienced mashup developers can get classroom style instruction on how to build mashups.” Now that’s for me.

boston, libraries, library, m.i.t., mashup, mashup camp, mashupcamp, mashups, mit, unconference, unconferences



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