Along with Chris Keene and Paul Stainthorp, I was recently asked by Craigie-Lee Paterson to present to around 20 people at a CPD25 training event at Goldsmith’s (University of London) on the theme of mashups and Web2.0 tools. The audience was mainly made up of academic and health library staff, so as a public librarian it was an opportunity for me to see things from another angle.
The morning was based around presentations from all three of us. Chris opened with a discussion about mashups, giving examples of what people have created with mashup tools and how mashups have developed. I followed up with a look at the tools/ resources you need to create mashups, such as RSS, Yahoo Pipes, library catalogues. Paul then went into detail about a catalogue project called Jerome at the University of Lincoln, as an example of what can be done when you get to the stage where you are able to programme and tinker with data. We finished the morning with questions and answers and a few more mashup examples.
In the afternoon Paul and I ran a practical session to create a mashup with Yahoo Pipes. All in attendance sat at their own computer and followed an example, which took an original RSS feed from the Guardian newspaper, filtered out unwanted news articles and tweaked the information so that it was presented in a particular way. After this Yahoo Pipes tutorial we gave people the opportunity to build their own.
I really enjoyed the event. Being involved in a training session outside of my public libraries role provides me with another perspective on how mashups can be used and also what is going on in libraries in the broader arena. It’s always great for me to be involved in these events, as I also get the chance to learn from other presenters – I think Paul and Chris would agree that we all have our own specialist areas and (as with Mashed Libraries events) sessions like this help me fill in gaps in my knowledge.
I think the day worked well and the feedback from Craigie-Lee and those in attendance was positive. Hopefully it will have inspired some of those people in attendance to make use of these tools and get mashing.











