Well, I'm not sure that's it at all. You folks are smart... help me out
here.

Wearing my LII hat (http://lii.org ) I have been approached by a
library--and had suggestions on our user survey--for something I've wanted
to offer from LII as an added value service (as in, we do it and you pay for
it) but wasn't able to articulate very well either in execution or in
technology. One survey response that I just read said:

"Develop web services (accessible by subscription) to allow a developer to
include some of the LII in an application."

The library I've been talking to has said they are interested in showing LII
content on their site. I have spoken briefly with their developers and
indicated an interest in doing this, and even sent PDFs displaying our table
structure internally. In turn, I've asked them what they would expect to see
on their site. URLs? Links to LII content? Parsing-in of categories?
Mini-descriptions, like titles plus the first ten, sort of like pulling in
an RSS feed?

If this helps, we generate XML very nicely in LII, through our new CMS
(Community Servers, a front end for MySQL), and we have authentication
options as well.

I can see this being hugely useful for libraries--instead of maintaining
lists of local links, display LII links, optionally with or without
content--and a way for LII to generate revenue to support what it does,
since we are facing a huge budget cut (50%). Our users tell us our content
is useful and this is one more way we can be a good "business to business"
service to libraries. It just needs some technical guidance and
thinking-through. I really think we could get grant money to do this, too.

So, thoughts?

Karen G. Schneider
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