**Library Mashups: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data.** Edited by Nicole C. Engard. Medford, N.J.: Information Today, 2009. 334 pages (soft cover). ISBN 978-1-57387-372-7. CAN$38.76.

*Library Mashups: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data* is an edited work designed to encourage librarians to make at least one change to their library website through the use of mashups, defined in the book as “web applications that use content from more than one source to create a single new service displayed in a single graphical interface” (p. 311). The editor, Nicole C. Engard, was named one of Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers in 2007 and has published several articles on technology and libraries, as well as maintaining a blog called– “What I Learned Today”. She volunteers as the Documentation Manager for Koha Integrated Library System and is also the director of Open Source Education at ByWater Solutions. For this book Nicole has gathered 25 diverse contributors, primarily from the United States of America, but with representation from Canada, Europe, and Australia. These authors represent different types of libraries, as well as vendors and software providers.

*Library Mashups* consists of five parts, each with four or five chapters. Part I is entitled “What are Mashups?” and introduces the concept of mashups and its associated terminology. Darlene Fichter’s first chapter serves as an excellent introduction to both Part I and the rest of the book, as it clearly defines and illustrates what mashups are and how they relate to libraries. The remaining three chapters, with varying degrees of complexity, include examples of mashups, how mashups work, and what they can do. In Part II, “Mashing up Library Websites”, the focus is on tools that can be used to turn a static library website into a more dynamic one. The four chapters cover specific library website possibilities, and highlight the tools available to make them happen. The library catalog is the focal point in Part III, Mashing Up Catalog Data. The five chapters in this section present specific examples of both subscription and open source tools for creating a library catalogue and for using open data, including tips for using these tools and the code required to create your own. The next part of the book, “Maps, Pictures, and Video… Oh My!”, highlights specific library examples of digital image and video collections and two mapping projects. One of the mapping projects is an interactive campus map and the other is a map of digital repositories created from different data providers across the world. The fifth and final part of the book, “Adding Value to Your Services”, includes still more examples and possibilities, including a federated database search engine for a public library consortium, and

an electronic dissertation mashup that is used in multiple interesting ways in an academic university setting.

The book concludes with two useful appendices. Appendix A is an alphabetical listing of the websites mentioned throughout the text. One common problem that arises with books that focus on Web 2.0 tools and capabilities is that the web is dynamic and changes constantly so the content can quickly become outdated and the links broken. To avoid this, and to supplement the content and examples in this book, the editor has created an accompanying website, *mashups.web2learning.net*, where a current list of all links is maintained. Appendix B is a glossary of terms found throughout the book and is also available on the associated website. This site includes a blog with information on corrections, more mashup examples, conference workshops, presentations relating to the book, and links to book reviews.

One of the highlights of this book is the examples that are embedded throughout the text, which put a concrete face on abstract concepts. For example, Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, created a contemporary ceramics image collection using tools such as Flickr and Cooliris, which can be viewed at *www.accessCeramics.org*. Both the public website and submission system associated with this collection are mashups, but the authors go even further as they have kept the data open for further mashups and make multiple suggestions of possible future use of this data.

The diversity of authors with their different experiences and styles of writing are both the strength and the weakness of this book. The chapters range from introductory material, to more complex sections that require background knowledge to fully understand them. This creates a book that is difficult to read from cover to cover and is better suited as a reference book, where you can choose the chapters that are most relevant to your needs. In this capacity, and in conjunction with its associated website, this book works very well, as it is filled with excellent and varied examples and possibilities for librarians to make changes, whether simple or more complex, to their own institutional OPACS and websites. This book is recommended for health science librarians who are interested in innovative ways to reach their target audience. It need not be limited to the tech savvy, as there is sufficient material to appeal to the neophyte coder as well.

Mindy Thuna

*Science Liaison Librarian, HMALC*
*Library, University of Toronto Mississauga*
3359 Mississauga Road North
Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6, Canada
E-mail: mindy.thuna@utoronto.ca