Mashups and Remixes for Government Information

By Cassandra Harper, ASRC Management Services at the Office of Water Resource Center

Listen to this session.

Karen Huffman of National Geographic Society (Presentation) and Dan Newman of MAPLight.org (Portion of Presentation) presented innovative strategies on creating and accessing government information on mash-ups during this lively session.  Web 2.0 has brought about a tremendous growth in collaborative communities and mashups on the Internet.  It allows new ways to deliver information with customized content.  Librarians are fast to catching onto this trend by combining and remixing existing, and sometimes unrelated, data available on the internet to create new consolidated and customized applications.  The creation of mashups can present legal issues when combining commercial information.  However, government information is in the public domain and can be used without fear of copyright violations.

Photo courtesy of Karen Huffman

Mashups are part of service-oriented architecture with internet resources.  Mashups reach into the Application Program Interface (API) for a given application, then extract information and webpage elements to launch a new application that adds value.  In the past, mash-ups focused heavily on connecting and mixing information with pinpoints on maps.  Some mashups connected information on crime statistics, or real estate with Google or Yahoo maps to add value for users.