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27 May 2007

Putting your library catalog inside of Facebook

Facebook just announced a new developer platform that lets you write applications that live inside their network. You register your code with their service, and when people add your application to their profile you get a simplified markup language for your code. I don't understand all of the fine points yet, nor am I likely to any time soon, but there are sample and tutorial codes out there (in PHP5) that let me bring up a tiny "hello world" style application in under an hour.

The obvious next step is to build in some kind of interface to the library catalog, right? The simple target is something along the lines of John Blyberg's Go Go Google Gadget, which shows new and popular books in a little box. Only slightly more complicated is a search interface.

No code or examples to share yet, but if anyone wants to give this a go I'm happy to see more.

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Posted on 27 May 2007 in Code |

Comments

I'm just waiting to see someone come up with a LibraryThing app for Facebook.

Posted by: Andrea | 30 May 2007 at 09:38 AM

http://uillinois.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2414276217

Mini-interface to the OPAC and four databases plus the state-wide academic libraries catalog.

Posted by: Lisa Hinchliffe | 10 June 2007 at 09:33 AM

Code plus process now available for the UIUC Facebook app: https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/dh-ward/www/facebook_search_widget.zip

Posted by: Lisa Hinchliffe | 11 June 2007 at 12:38 PM

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