This is a gloriously practical book and I shall admit at once to a great partiality for practical books. The accompanying website is still at an early stage but, if it fulfils its promise to update URLs and case studies cited in the book, it will be a valuable addition, which many others would benefit from following. Chapter 9 (page 113) usefully defines mashups as “… more than a consolidation of information: they involve the use of existing tools or the creation of entirely new interfaces to explore and expose information in new ways”. The ethos of the book is to enable librarians without programming knowledge to re-use third party data to enrich their own library resources.
For a work by so many different authors there is a pleasing uniformity of tone, making the book very readable. Throughout there is good use of screenshots and figures. Although some chapters make better use of these in step-by-step guides, none are intrusive or over-used. The guide for putting bookmarks into ‘Delicious’, to use as an easily maintained subject guide, is an excellent example of a straightforward step-by-step guide. Several of the example mashups have more immediate relevance to public and academic libraries than law firm libraries, but even initially irrelevant options could be adapted. For example, the mashup for electronic dissertations could be used for seminars, or know-how, within firms.
The opening chapters cover commonly used mashups including Google-maps to show library locations with overlay windows giving contact details and opening hours, or Google Books and Preview used within OPACs to show book covers and previews (if available), or tags and reviews from LibraryThing to enrich the user's understanding of an item's interest and help to locate it on the shelves. This could easily be adapted to use as an acquisitions page with book covers and reviews. Drawbacks with some OPACs, such as a lack of spell checker, could be overcome by mashups, and OPAC searches that reveal no matches could show how to contact a librarian for further help, rather than leaving users frustrated by a lack of success.
There are other mashup books available, such as Working with Yahoo! Pipes, No Programming Required by Loton, but there do not appear to be any others aimed particularly at librarians. It is worthwhile to have practical case studies which readers are encouraged to copy as trial runs before introducing new mashups to their own libraries. Focusing on librarians as a target readership means that all the examples and case studies are relevant to at least one section of the library community, or produce readily adaptable ideas. Some of the general mashup titles require more imagination about use in a library context, whereas this book clearly illustrates what can be achieved now without prior expertise. The author of the chapter on Yahoo Pipes mentions reading many articles about Yahoo Pipes before one practical article illustrated how it could be used. The entire book has that inspiring quality of practical, achievable ideas.
No attempt is made to gloss over potential drawbacks such as mashups making it difficult to identify where information has been drawn from and hence its reliability and the question of how long some organisations are likely to make data streams available. Mashups are still held up as a worthwhile enrichment beyond a simple list of links to other websites. Simple additions can transform a list of events, or training sessions, into a calendar of library events with the option for users to add an item to their personal calendar, or automatically be emailed details of relevant forthcoming events. Many Web 2.0 sites already encourage embedding their content without requiring programming expertise by using options such as “get our widget” or “embed this video by copying and pasting” without knowledge of HTML.
The introduction claims the book will cover not just technical guidance, but also copyright issues. Many of the chapters do mention copyright but, probably understandably in a book of this size, there is no detailed coverage of intellectual property, which could be a key issue for commercial libraries wishing to reuse images, or videos, and disappointingly there is no suggested further reading. There are websites and references at the end of each chapter and in the first appendix, but suggested further reading would have been a useful addition. The glossary and index are good, but the glossary omits the keyword “Ruby on Rails” which is mentioned throughout Chapter 9.
Users are more aware of sophisticated websites mixing information and feel static lists and old-fashioned OPACs look dated. On the whole the book is refreshingly enthusiastic, with a positive attitude to trying out mashups, which should inspire even the least experienced technophobe to attempt something which could enhance their library offerings and improve currency.
