Hi,
I would like to share a few pointers to web services and widgets
Annette and I recently collaborated on. All are available under an
open source license.
"Widgets" are CSS-styled HTML elements (<span> or <div>) that provide
dynamic behavior related to the underlying web service. These are
suitable for non-JavaScript programmers familiar with HTML/CSS.
1. MAJAX 2: Includes a JSON web service (e.g.,
http://libx.lib.vt.edu/services/majax2/isbn/1412936373 or
http://libx.lib.vt.edu/services/majax2/isbn/006073132x?opacbase=http%3A%2F%2Flibcat.lafayette.edu%2Fsearch&jsoncallback=majax.processResults
) and a set of widgets to include results into web pages, see
http://libx.lib.vt.edu/services/majax2/ Supports the same set of
features as MAJAX 1 (libx.org/majax)
Source is at http://code.google.com/p/majax2/
2. ticTOC lookup: is a Google App Engine app that provides a REST
interface to JISC's ticTOC data set that maps ISSN to URLs of table of
contents RSS feeds. See http://tictoclookup.appspot.com/
Example: http://tictoclookup.appspot.com/0028-0836 and optional
refinement by title:
http://tictoclookup.appspot.com/0028-0836?title=Nature
A widget library is available; see
http://laurel.lib.vt.edu/record=b1251610~S7 for a demo (shows floating
tooltips with table of contents preview via Google Feeds and places a
link to RSS feeds) The source is at
http://code.google.com/p/tictoclookup/ and includes a stand-alone
version of the web service which doesn't use GAE. The widget library
includes support for integration into III's record display.
3. Google Book Classes at http://libx.lib.vt.edu/services/googlebooks/
- these are widgets for Google's Book Search Dynamic Links API.
Noteworthy is support for integration into III's OPAC on the search
results page ("briefcit.html"), on the so-called bib display page
("bib_display.html") and their "WebBridge" product via field
selectors, all without JavaScript. Source is at
http://code.google.com/p/googlebooks/
4. A Link/360 JSON Proxy. See
http://libx.lib.vt.edu/services/link360/index.html
This one takes Serials Solution's Link/360 XML Service and proxies it
as JSON. Currently does not include a widget set. Caches results 24
hours to match db update frequency. Source is at
http://code.google.com/p/link360/ Could be combined with a widget
library, or programmed to directly, to weave Link/360 holdings data
into pages.
All JSON services accept 'jsoncallback=' for cross-domain client-side
integration. The libx.lib.vt.edu URLs are ok to use for testing, but
for production use we recommend your own server. All modules are
written in Python as WSGI scripts, requiring setup as simple as
mod_wsgi + .htaccess.
- Godmar
