Has that made you decide to hold off on API work with 360 search?

Me, I tend to forge forward anyway.  If you're always waiting for the
next thing, you're always waiting. But I think the chances are fairly
good that the 360 Search API would remain.  Does WebFeat even have an
API?  Although if nobody's actually using the 360 Search API, I guess
SerSol doesn't have much motivation to continue to support it.

Except that it's a selling point. That's been my experience with
vendors. Everyone asks for an API, so some vendors want to provide an
API. But the API is usually so difficult to work with that it's
impossible to do anything with. And then few if any customers actually
use it. And then it's unsupported, and just gets worse and worse.

The way to fix this is to get more customers using it, of course, so the
vendor sees that they have to support it. Which is another reason I
don't like to postpone API use work.

Jonathan

Cloutman, David wrote:
> Just as a note, before you write your code- We are in the process of
> evaluating federated search tools, and one item we learned that Serials
> Solutions and Webfeat are now owned by the same parent company. The
> stories we are getting from the two vendors are a little different, but
> essitially what we are hearing is that the two federated searching
> products will be integrated into a single product within a year, and
> that the two development teams will be merged. I do not know how this
> will impact the API for 360 Link, since that appears to be a separate
> module, but you may want to take this into consideration in planning
> your development.
>
> Good luck with your project,
>
> - David
>
>
> ---
> David Cloutman <[log in to unmask]>
> Electronic Services Librarian
> Marin County Free Library
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Jonathan Rochkind
> Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 11:14 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Serials Solutions 360 API - PHP classes?
>
>
> I wouldn't be surprised either. But it's kind of important if they
> actually want their APIs to be _used_ by anyone. Even if you can only
> share with other SerSol customers. What's the point of having APIs if
> the community can't share code they write to use them?
>
> I am interested in incorporating SerSol 360 Link support into Umlaut,
> although my institution is not a 360 Link customer. So I'm curious where
> you end up with this, and if you can establish some allowed mechanism
> for sharing SerSol API-client code, even if only with other SerSol
> customers, that would be useful to all of us.  Only SerSol customers
> have any _use_ for the code of course, but if a part of Umlaut has to be
> downloaded seperately only after you've somehow established yourself as
> a SerSol customer--that gets tricky to manage.
>
> Jonathan
>
> Yitzchak Schaffer wrote:
>
>>> From: Code for Libraries on behalf of Yitzchak Schaffer
>>> Sent: Wed 4/2/2008 12:28 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: [CODE4LIB] Serials Solutions 360 API - PHP classes?
>>>
>>>
>>> Does anyone have/know of PHP classes for searching the Serials
>>>
> Solutions
>
>>> 360 APIs, particularly Search?
>>>
>> Okay, having not heard any affirmatives, I'm starting work on this.
>>
> I'm
>
>> an OOP and PHP noob, so I'm donning my flak jacket/dunce cap in
>>
> advance,
>
>> but I'll try to make this as useful to the community and comprehensive
>> as time and my ability allow.  Assuming that Serials Solutions will
>> allow some kind of sharing for these - they make clients sign a NDA
>> before they show you the docs.  I'm waiting to hear their response; I
>> would be surprised if they wouldn't allow sharing of something like
>>
> this
>
>> among clients.
>>
>> --
>> Yitzchak Schaffer
>> Systems Librarian
>> Touro College Libraries
>> 33 West 23rd Street
>> New York, NY 10010
>> Tel (212) 463-0400 x230
>> Fax (212) 627-3197
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>>
>
> --
> Jonathan Rochkind
> Digital Services Software Engineer
> The Sheridan Libraries
> Johns Hopkins University
> 410.516.8886
> rochkind (at) jhu.edu
>
> Email Disclaimer: http://www.co.marin.ca.us/nav/misc/EmailDisclaimer.cfm
>
>

--
Jonathan Rochkind
Digital Services Software Engineer
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu