Linking to Amazon.com for Big Bucks

[Kevin Kierans]

And another wrinkle on the whole thing:

see http://www.rdpl.red-deer.ab.ca/Chapters.html

Buy Buy Donate:  Come into Chapters and buy a book... Read the book
and then donate it to the ... Library.  and receive a charitable income
tax receipt. (you must donate the book with the original Chapters sales
receipt) within three months of purchase.  

What do you all think of that?
(a patron phoned my boss to ask why we didn't do that too...)

I too feel would uncomfortable choosing one (or any) vendor to
associate with.

What we _have_ done however, is to run a monthly script that
pulls our "most popular" books out of our holds queues.

We tack the ISBN to the end of three online bookstore search engines and
post as:

http://www.tnrdlib.bc.ca/most_popular.html

The page has the following disclaimer:

Links to on-line bookstores are provided so that you can 
find additional information about the books 
(there is usually a picture of the cover and
perhaps some reviews), and does not represent an endorsement 
of any kind. The links, which are computer generated, may not always
lead to
the book in question: in that case the on-line bookstore will 
generally provide you with the opportunity to search by keyword. 

A distressingly large number of isbn's are somehow incorrect.
Haven't had the time to look into why yet.

We don't get any money from anyone.  

I can see the day I get a call from Chapters Bookstores asking why we
don't link to them, and then from....




-- 
Kevin Kierans,  Manager of Library and Support Services
   Thompson-Nicola Regional District Library System       
     Kamloops, B.C.  CANADA  V2C 2A9 (250)374-8866         
mailto:kkierans at tnrdlib.bc.ca  http://www.tnrdlib.bc.ca/
   Reader's Robot: http://www.tnrdlib.bc.ca/rr
--