[WEB4LIB] Re: Linking to Amazon.com for Big Bucks

[Charles P. Hobbs]

> 
> 
> I'm troubled by this hot new idea for raising money for the library. Seems to me
> that you're explicitly (or at the very least) implicitly endorsing Amazon, as
> opposed to, say, bn.com, borders.com, books.com, your local bookstore...

Back in 1997, I wrote, for the library I was then working at, a web-based
library catalog. (It was a perl script that searched exported files from
our OPAC). At that time, we also had a static page of links to Amazon
books, using our affiliate code. (That was primarily designed to
supplement the school bookstore, which often had difficulty getting
certain items)

Upon finding out that any record in Amazon could be displayed by using a
URL coded with the book's ISBN number, that mechanism found its way into
my catalog. You can still see this catalog in action at http://www.pgi.edu/libcat.htm
(although I have since changed jobs and no longer actively maintain it).

We (Phillips Graduate Institute) was one of the first (if not *the* first)
libraries to implement such a thing, and I believe I announced it on
Web4Lib, with the ensuing discussion of "was this ethical?". Of course,
since PGI is a private institution, and relatively small, some of the
issues that might apply to larger and/or public institutions might not
have applied to us. (No one at PGI told us that we shouldn't have links to 
Amazon, or that we had to add other bookstores as well).

Tacoma Public Library (WA), eventually came out with an Amazon-linked web
opac in late 97 or early 98, and it was written up in _Library Journal_.
You can see this product at http://www.tpl.lib.wa.us/topcat/ . Since
it's still in place, Amazon links and all, again, no-one seems to have
successfully challenged them on this practice.

If I was building such a catalog today, I'd add Barnes and Noble, Borders,
Joe's Local Book Store, and anyone else as long as they had an
ISBN-searchable database, if only as a matter of supporting competition.
(I might even set up a script that pre-reads the pages, extracts the
prices and displays the prices for each store for a particular book, but
that's a whole 'nother ball of wax . . .)
> 
> If I was the owner of a local bookstore and had been a strong supporter of the
> local public library (which is the way it should work), and I then found that
> the library's online catalog was--in effect--touting Amazon and steering
> customers away from my bookstore, I would at the very least be outraged and cut
> off library support.

At least, I'd try to set up a searchable database (not necessarily a whole
online store) and get the library to link to my store as well as to
Amazon, et. al. 

 At worst, I'd think that the bookstores and competitive
> online stores would have a pretty good case for a lawsuit about using tax funds
> to support specific businesses over other businesses--and I don't think you can
> make the claim that no public resources are being used, when you
explicitly
> mount links and build the linking mechanism.

Probably what would come out of that is that the library would have to
link to everyone who asked, in the name of "fairness". 

> 
> If you're one of those who believes that public libraries should really be
> businesses anyway, and that anything that brings in the bucks is a Good Idea,
> then I suppose this is old-fashioned liberal whining.

Not necessarily, libraries do collect money in other aspects of operation
(fines, rental books and movies, copying, ILL's, online searching, etc.)
Most of the time, this is cost-recovery, but some of it is done to make
a "profit" that is spent on new books, etc.

> I assume your community
> information file sells placement? (Looking for a restaurant? Our reference
> department will steer you to whoever's paid us the best fee!)

Never heard of any library doing this. I think most librarians would
reject such an idea, as now we're going into the realm of outsiders
influencing library *content* (the information file), as opposed to
simply providing a little extra *information* ("We have this book, and oh
yeah, Amazon has it. Don't really know about any other bookstores, because 
we haven't set up an agreement with them).

> 
> I haven't responded to some of these other notes, but I assume some of you are
> aware of the negative implications of systems that offer to show you books you
> might want based not only on what you've borrowed before (which means they keep
> a record of everything you've borrowed--so much for decades of working out
> privacy provisions) but, much worse, on what *other people* have borrowed
> before.

If I was going to do this (not saying I *should*) I'd make darned sure
that in any database created, there would be *no* way to link individual
borrowers with any materials. (Not impossible to do--the people that do
the health databases at the CDC also have to make sure that individuals
cannot be identified in their databases either).