May 16, 2006
Amazon-Supported Library Services
Whilst chatting to Gill Needham in the OU Library last week about the OU Library Amazon script, and a 'gold plated service' delivering library books direct to people's pigeon-holes*, Gill mentioned in passing whether there was any opportunity in using the Amazon catalogue in place of our public facing library catalogue. I've been mulling this over tonight, and consdiered the flipside - what if we use the library catalogue as a front end to Amazon?
[*Apparently, the library provides library services to the OU regional offices/academics, and also ALs (the latter via a postal loans service. Many ALs are employed in their own local HEIs, of course, so they don't really need to call on the OU library for books (not least because the collection is rather small, and - err, how to say this - a bit quirky ;-) (That said, we do have an impressive e-library collection, which is also available to ALs (and registered students...)) Nevertheless, for regional staff at least, the opportunity is there to have books pulled of the shelf in Milton Keynes and shipped up to the regional office.]
The idea (of using a library catalogue as an Amazon interface) may well have merit, it seems, as this precedent from the Surrey library service demonstrates:
You can now buy items from Amazon.co.uk though the library catalogue and help to support your local library service into the bargain!Every title listed in the libraries' online catalogue of more than 400,000 books now has a link to the Amazon.co.uk website. Many of the links in the catalogue lead straight to the relevant page on Amazon so if you find that the book you want isn't in stock at your local library, buying it is just a click away.
(Here's the press release and here's a link to the Surrey Libraries catalogue if you want to try it out (an Amazon link is on each book's details page:-)
Now, there are several things that spin off the idea of using the library catalogue as a front end to the Amazon catalogue.
Firstly, we get a piece of the pie whenever someone buys a book by registering as an Amazon Associate**.
[**I did raise this once, somewhere internal, with respect to the sale of set books to students (there's a OUseful Amazon Greasemonkey script for this page of course...;-) Apparently, that's not possible, because weplay fair.]
Secondly, the Library's in the fulfilment business, just like Amazon. If a user's needs can be satisifed more quickly, directly, and cheaply, by getting the book out of the library, why not get the book from the library?
Thirdly, there must be a cost associated with getting books either via inter-library loans or posting them up to regional staff. I don't know how the library decides whether to buy a book that has been requested as an inter-library loan (presumably one factor would be the likelihood of it ever being borrowed again?! a factor which might be reflected by the Amazon sales rank?) but if a decision is made to ILL it at a cost greater than the purchase price of the book***, then wouldn't it be sensible to suggest to the patron that they buy the book for themself on a budget code funded via Library internal transfer/rebate to their Faculty? Especially if the Library also took a cut as an Associate (hmm - this may breach the Associate agreement)? And double especially if the book then found itself onto the patron's bookshelf - which would of course be linked into the Library catalogue (and I suppose Amazon, too) via a Greasemonkey script;-)
[***this will come through the on the OUseful Feedburner feed as a delicious feedthru item, but if you haven't moved your subscription to this blog there yet, here's a taste of what you're missing out on:
WIshlist Buddy: A really neat little web app that lets you set a target price for your Amazon wishlist items. When Amazon discounts the price of the item to a level at or below your target price, it sends you an alert.]
Fourthly, the Library would be able to satisfy more user requests (?hmm ;-) - at the very least, seeing what books people were going to Amazon for because the library couldn't satisfy them, might usefully inform the Collections Development Policy.
And finally, it would also be possible to call on the Amazon web service API to give a list of links to other books that people who bought the book in question on Amazon also bought... One reason you might want to do this is to refer people to other books in the library system that are related the book currently under inspection. (Again, this would provide data to the collection development group).
And why use Amazon's 'people who bought...' data rather than our own 'people who borrowed this also borrowed that' data? Well, I seem to recall Paul Miller touched on this when he talked at the OU - the long tail... given the size of the our library userbase, the populations are so small that it's quite likely that the data will give some very peculiar results indeed!
In contrast, the volume of purchases going through Amazon on even unpopular titles are likely to be statistically more robust, and hence more likely to result in sensible recommendations.)
It's also possible to imagine an architectural enforcement of a policy to use the Library catalogue as an Amazon gateway for users on campus - anyone trying to look up something on Amazon from the OU network could be redirected to the library catalogue, staff bookshelves or Club CD library ;-)
Posted by ajh59 at May 16, 2006 11:34 PM