[Web4lib] twitter for creating relations between isbn and web resources

[Theo van Veen]

When users want to make a link between an ISBN and a review or other relevant web resource they can do that for example by adding an entry in Twitter like: relate isbn_xxxxxxxxx http://xyz. OPACS presenting a full display of a book description may invoke a Twitter query on-the-fly for the ISBN via the URL parameter q=isbn_xxxxxxxxx and when there is a hit in Twitter these OPACS may add the URL http://xyz to the presentation for that ISBN. In this way a single OPAC may benefit from links added in Twitter by users of all other OPACS that support this feature. Of course this concept does not have to be restricted to ISBN and works only when a critical mass of supporting OPACS is reached.
 
Examples can be found and created via http://dev.theeuropeanlibrary.org/tpportal. Search for "beatles", select "Algemene Catalogus" and from the displayed records select the first or fouth entry. There you will see in red the added links. If you have a twitter account you can add a link to an ISBN by pressing the the ISBN value. You will get a services menu and one of the options is "Add related URL in Twitter". Clicking that link will result in a prompt for a URL and after that for your user name and password. When retrieving the same record one minute later the link in Twitter is added to the ISBN.
 
Although this mail was intended for advertising the concept of using Twitter as a common storage for relating ISBNs to web resources (which might an old idea), I make use of the opportunity to explain what is behind the test and demonstration portal that I mentioned. This portal is used for testing the Schema for Integration of Web Applications (SIWA). This is a model for allowing users to tell web applications which other web applications they want to have integrated and when and how. 
The basic most simple scenario is that the service integration description specifies which metadata fields (as result of a search in a portal) should trigger the invocation of another web application or service. The value of that metadata field is used as input for the invoked service. In many cases invocation is just linking to the service but more advanced types of use are for example replacing metadata fields by the output of a service (e.g. translation). Clicking on a metadata value you will see all the services for which that metadata field is defined as trigger. Some of those services are invoked automatically like checking Twitter for ISBNs related to web resources. Average users won't create service integration descriptions (SIDs) themselves, but we aim at lowering the barrier for advanced users to share their SIDs with other users.
The test portal is quite buggy but the model will be implemented in The European Library portal and the Europeana portal in a more robust way. 
 
If you are interested in this type of service integration please let me know.
 
Theo van Veen