Inspiration

The Monroe County Library System has an events directory that is rather expansive. However, it has no option to subscribe to specific libraries' events. We wanted to help ease this pain point for Rochesterians by building a solution that would integrate with everyone's favorite calendar applications.

What it does

Allows users to select a subset of libraries closest to them and generated an ical that can be subscribed to. The events the libraries have posted are added to the user's personal calendars.

How we built it

We built a Rails application that connects to the Monroe County Library Events API and collects event information. This information is sorted and organized, then formatted on demand into an iCal format that can be digested by most calendar applications. Rochesterians can select libraries on demand to subscribe to, so they get events most relevant to them right in their preferred calendar app.

Challenges we ran into

Learning RAILS, pagination, ical integration and deployment, getting postgress working, html elements

Accomplishments that we're proud of

It works! It's shipped!

We have a polished application with a simple implementation that accomplishes a big task. The web interface is a single page with a simple interface. We led with empathy for the user, providing help links for popular email clients and reworking our interface to make it as clear and simple as possible.

What we learned

RAILS, pagination, ical integration and deployment, getting postgress working, html elements

What's next for MCLSCal

We want to work with the Monroe County Library System to integrate with their current directory and offer a subscription service that their users can start taking advantage of immediately.

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Updates

posted an update

Possible future improvements. Filter for keywords, ie. library events that have the word "chess" in it, or filter by age range. Possibly extend the request generation to other library systems.

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