new API from OpenLibrary
posted in misc |Great to see that OpenLibrary ("One web page for every book") now has an API!
There's an interesting debate going on via the Code4Lib email list regarding the API. Specifically, should they have used SRU or is exposing a simple API better? Personally, I'm all for simple APIs that non-library techies can pick up and run with.
I've worked as a developer in libraries now for nearly 14 years and I've never used (or even seriously looked at) SRU. When I read the specification, I can feel my eyes begin to slowly glaze over! Perhaps this is just because I cut my teeth writing EDI processing software in COBOL and I've always suspected that people who develop specifications for use in libraries (e.g. Edifact, Z39.50, MARC, etc) are all a bunch of masochists ;-)
posted on May 8th, 2008 at 1:33 pm