Amazon.com, etc

[Eric Rumsey]

Has anyone seen discussions in the library/info science literature about
the impact of Internet booksellers on traditional library services?

For starters, a couple of ideas ...

With their nice links to reviews and reader comments, booksellers records
such as in Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble seem to be a natural for linking
from OPACs. The only case I know of this is the Tacoma Public Library; I'd
be surprised if there weren't others. As time goes on, and the archive of
books handled by the net booksellers increases, the review data presented
by booksellers will become increasingly useful.

It's becoming common to see what are often called "web bookstores,"
sometimes "web libraries," usually done by independent web page developers,
that consist of links to book records of net booksellers. The bookseller
people have enterprisingly provided various "associate" plans by which
people making such link pages are reimbursed for each book that customers
buy from their pages; my impression from corresponding with a few people
who do this, however, is that the monetary rewards are meager! So, not to
make a bundle of money, but because of our long knowledge of the book
trade, is this an area for librarians to think about trying out?

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Eric Rumsey, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences
University of Iowa, Iowa City IA 52242
<eric-rumsey at uiowa.edu>
319-335-9875 (voice), 319-335-9897 (fax)
Hardin Meta Directory of Internet Health Sources - Kudos -
http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/md/news.html