web services

Standards Cage Match

I prefaced my point about how the standards we choose in libraries isolate us from the larger stream of progress driving development outside libraries with the note that I was sure to get hanged for it. It’s true. I commented that there were over 140,00 registered Amazon API developers and 365 public OpenSearch targets (hey […] » about 1000 words

OPAC Web Services Should Be Like Amazon Web Services

No, I’m not talking about the interface our users see in the web browser — there’s enough argument about that — I’m talking about web services, the technologies that form much of the infrastructure for Web 2.0. Once upon a time, the technology that displayed a set of data, let’s say catalog records, was inextricably […] » about 900 words

Wikipedia API?

I want Wikipedia to have an API, but it doesn’t. Some web searching turned up Gina Trapani’s WikipedizeText, but that still wasn’t exactly what I wanted. A note in the source code, however, put me back on the trail to the Wikipedia database downloads, and while that’s not what I want, I did learn that […] » about 200 words