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Welcome to Liblog 1 - a weblog of current web sites and stories dealing with the interface between technology and libraries. Sometimes the connection to the sphere of the library is tenuous... but in today's world, everything has an impact on libraries, on librarians... and on library users. If you find this weblog of interest, you may enjoy these other library weblogs as well.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Mashups & Data Visualizations: New Breed of Web Applications
Darlene Fichter, Univ. of Saskatchewan
Web 1.0 - Realm of folks that knew HTML coding, of programmers
Web 2.0 - Everyone can participate - no need to know code; programming through widgets is DIY programming.
A mashup is a web application that uses content from more than one source to create a new service. Content typically sourced from an API and/or RSS Feed.
Mashup ecosystem relies on open content and open data, open sets of services and applications (APIs). And rely on us.
http://www.programmableweb.com/mashups
Approx. 50% of mashups`involve maps. Next biggest are photos and shopping.
Mashups are fast growing ecosystem. Don't have to get anybody's approval to provide a new API to the Internet Operationg System.
Content that can be repurposed and remixed gets used.
Questions of provenance and authority - when data comes from many different places, how to know what's valid?
Earthquake Mashup - uses yahoo Maps API and U.S. Geological Service data.
http://www.frappr.com/blogging/librarians - Google map API combined with community contributed content.
Google My Maps - can embed code in your library site, can be used for things like branch locations, historical buildings, locations in stories, etc.
McMaster Aerial photos - Google API combined with aerial photo index data to sho where locations photographed at various years were located.
http://www.westernspringshistory.org/map/
Yahoo Pipes - more powerful in many ways than other tools showed so far in presentation. Can embed logic into code. Showed a "Find A Library" mashup for Monterey that she said took her only a few minutes to create (by borrowing existing code and making her own modifications.)
Top 20 new books mashup combining their popular requested titles with their Syndetics book cover data. (Cambridge Public Library??).
Visualization Tools
http://www.time.com/time/covers/20061030/where_we_live/ - Time Magazine cover showing population density.
http://www.aharef.info/2006/05/websites_as_graphs.htm - web site structure presented as a graphic image.
Newsmap - http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm - shows concentration of news on various topics in various countries.
Elastic Lists Demo - http://well-formed-data.net/ - dynamically changing choices available based on dataset.
Social Sites for Data Visualization - allows any kind of data analysis, both curious and serious, statistician and citizens.
Many Eyes and Swivel - Social Data tools.
When search was hot, reference librarians became cool. With meta-data, catalogers became tool. Finally, now that visualization is hot data librarians are now cool!
Trendalyzer/Gapminder - transforms data into animations.
Labels: Darlene Fichter, IL2007, mashups
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Other web logs with links to library issues:
- Lori Bowen Ayre's Library Technology Musings provides "Hopes, dreams, wild ideas and practical solutions for libraries."
- Marylaine Block's Neat New Stuff I Found This Week (and her Ex Libris E-Zine for librarians.)
- Tara Calishain's Research Buzz, "news about search engines, databases, and other information collections."
- Blake Carver and Steve Galbraith's LISNews.com, focuses on (as the subtitle puts it), "news for information professionals."
- Steven M. Cohen's Library Stuff, provides readers with information on the wonderful and exciting world of librarianship.
- Gary Frost's Future of the Book, looks at "preservation and persistence of the changing book."
- Michael Gartenberg (an analyst with Jupiter Research, a market research and advisory firm focused on emerging technologies and the Internet) is one of several Jupiter researchers producing an Analyst Weblog.
- Brend Hough and Liz Rea's NEKLS Technology Weblog, "50 Feet From the Cutting Edge in the Northeast Kansas Library System."
- Sarah Houghton's Librarian In Black, has "resources and discussions for the 'tech-librarians-by-default' among us..."
- Jenny Levine, the original bloggin' librarian, is back with the Shifted Librarian, working to make libraries more "portable... to serve our remote patrons."
- Alex Soojung-Kim Pang (one of the Institute for the Future's research team) is producing Future Now, which looks at emerging technologies and their social implications.
- Gary Price and Shirl Kennedy's ResourceShelf has "resources and news for information professionals" (including the latest scoops on what's what with the invisible web).
- Michael Stephens' Tame the Web includes, "current technology uses in libraries, training tips and various other interests concerning library settings."
- Sandra Stewart at San Jose Public Library is producing a Library Tourguide to Blogs and Technology.
- Jessamyn West's librarian.net, keeping track of the nifty reference sites - and library references - she finds.
- Stephanie Wright's TechnoBiblio, where librarians and technogeeks speak the same language.
Not a weblog, but a very funny look at libraries:
- Unshelved - Bill Barnes' and Gene Ambaum's library comic strip (formerly known as Overdue.)
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