Bill,

I think I will have a chapter dedicated to Library-developed APIs.  I
think that's a great idea.  The book will be geared towards the novice, so
introducing them to the use of existing APIs will be a good base for
discussing the programming of local APIs.

Thanks for the insight!

Jason

On 10/10/11 10:13 PM, "William Denton" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>On 8 October 2011, Michel, Jason Paul wrote:
>
>> I'm a lurker on this listserv and am interested in gaining some insight
>> into your experiences of utilizing web service APIs in either an
>> academic library or public library setting.
>>
>> I'm writing a book for ALA Editions on the use of Web Service APIs in
>> libraries.  Each chapter covers a specific API by delineating the
>> technicalities of the API, discussing potential uses of the API in
>> library settings, and step-by-step tutorials.
>
>Where I work we use the Google Books API to link to their versions of
>things, and because we use VuFind we pull in book covers from Open
>Library 
>and so on.
>
>Are you covering how libraries make their own APIs?  We have a few that
>are used in our university's student portal and course management system
>to suggest subject guides, course guides and My Librarian.  The docs (now
>somewhat outdated) are here:
>
> 	http://www.library.yorku.ca/ccm/web/docs/apis/
>
>How libraries use APIs from big services is interesting, but I'd be very
>interested in reading about how libraries make their own APIs that others
>can reuse, even locally inside large institutions like universities,
>colleges, school systems, cities, etc.
>
>Bill
>-- 
>William Denton
>Toronto, Canada
>http://www.miskatonic.org/