John Miedema

When You Link to a Book, Do You Link to Amazon, LibraryThing, WorldCat, or What?

16 May 2008 9 Comments

This entry is part 1 of 12 in the series Building OpenBook

When You Link to a Book, Do You Link to Amazon, LibraryThing, WorldCat, or What?
Four Big Libraries: I Pick OpenLibrary
OpenBook Plugin: Requirements
OpenBook Plugin: The Open Library API
OpenBook Plugin: Coding in PHP
OpenBook Plugin: Grabbing the Book Data
OpenBook Plugin: Let There Be Cover Images!
OpenBook Plugin: The Importance of Linking to Publisher Websites
OpenBook Plugin: Graphic Design
OpenBook Plugin: Hooking into WordPress
OpenBook Plugin: Now Accepting Arguments, and Beta Testers
OpenBook Beta Release!

I write book reviews here. I always include a link to the book.

I used to link to Amazon, but I stopped that practice some time ago. After all, why should they get priority over other book sellers. I started linking to my LibraryThing entries, but despite how great it is, it is still a proprietary source, often making money from Amazon. If I am going to pick a proprietary source, it seems to me the most reasonable choice is the publisher. My current policy is to link to the publisher’s website, to the book itself if a link is available.

But man, some of those publisher sites are crappy!

WorldCat does not seem like a choice to me since it does not contain titles not in libraries, and it does not represent non-member libraries including my own. I have been considering linking to Open Library; it has fewer titles than WorldCat but in theory it should surpass WorldCat because its contents are not limited to a physical collection.

What’s your policy on linking to a book?

Series NavigationFour Big Libraries: I Pick OpenLibrary»

9 Comments »

walt crawford said:

I link to worldcat.org at PLN, in almost all cases, on the “better than nothing, and at least they’re mostly libraries” theory. If the book isn’t published yet or isn’t held at any libraries in worldcat, I’ll link to Amazon or the publisher’s site…

# 16 May 2008 at 4:02 pm

Tee Jay said:

Thanks for posting those sites. I was not aware that WorldCat or Open Library existed…or even Library Thing, for that matter.
I am going to these sites from now on, thanks to your post.

# 16 May 2008 at 5:24 pm

John said:

Thanks Walt. I’m still mulling over this one. Amazon has become the standard link on the web. Kudos to Amazon for being good enough to attract people’s interest, but there are implications that librarians should be concerned about, as you know more than I. I’m going to make a blog policy choice about this in the near future, likely in favour of WorldCat or OpenLibrary. The key factors in my mind are availability of titles, data richness and links (including social data), neutrality, and openness, pretty much in that order. The fact that I can add missing titles at OpenLibrary is an advantage over WorldCat.

# 17 May 2008 at 9:07 am

John said:

Hi Tee Jay, glad to help.

# 17 May 2008 at 9:08 am

John said:

I have growing concerns about the readiness of OpenLibrary for public usage. When I add titles, they are only temporarily saved under a domain with a “demo” prefix. Subsequent updates overwrite the pages. Links cannot be relied upon. To be fair, they are in beta, and maintained by a small staff. I have inquired with them, but unless I hear something significant, I can’t see using them at this point. Too bad, because I think they are on to something.

I am leaning back to WorldCat. It is a non-profit organization, giving it more neutrality than commercial sources. However, I find myself looking at LibraryThing again, with its richer social data, frequent innovations, user-entered titles, etc. It also links to WorldCat and multiple vendors. Not bad.

My longer term interest is the development of a WordPress plug-in that will facilitate the display of book information in a post. I want to choose a single good source of book data for the first version.

================================
Update: May 18, 2008, 10:25 EST

The above problem at OpenLibrary was a bug that has been fixed. Thanks! Now, this might be reason for concern. Was I the first person to try to add a book and notice there were no persistent links? On the other hand, the ground floor might be ideal opportunity to get involved, maybe even lend a hand by pointing out these things. OpenLibrary persists in my thinking because of two very compelling features — it is open (source and data) unlike WorldCat, and it is neutral (as much as non-profit can be) unlike Amazon and LibraryThing. These projects often take longer to get off the ground but then deliver an overall better product in the long run, e.g., Linux. I must mull some more.

# 17 May 2008 at 10:35 pm

Peter said:

I link to Amazon, though I feel kind of bad about it.

Before my blog, I used to post all of my book reviews on Amazon. But I didn’t like how they then claimed that the review was theirs, and I didn’t like the “Did you find this helpful?” voting. So I stopped. But stopping has made me feel better about linking to Amazon now just for a place to read more about the book.

If I’m in the market for a book, I start with Amazon for info then move to bookfinder.com to find the best price.

# 24 May 2008 at 10:48 pm

John said:

Hi Peter, I think more book reviewers feel a little uncomfortable about linking to Amazon. While they do provide a good source of book data, the link does represent advertising for them. I feel the same way. That’s why I decided to go with a neutral source.

(I should make use of bookfinder.com. Txs.)

# 25 May 2008 at 7:23 pm

Laura said:

I’ve meant for some years now to do a survey about people’s book-linking practices. I generally link to worldcat.org, although if my library weren’t in it, I probably wouldn’t, and I can understand your reluctance. I have in the past sometimes linked to Powells.com or author or publisher websites. I avoid Amazon.com like the plague, though I suspect that’s due to an irrational reactionary tendency in me rather than to any truly coherent argument.

# 6 June 2008 at 12:55 pm

John said:

Hi Laura, that’s a good idea for a survey, maybe on your blog? The nice thing about Open Library is that it links to many of the others: WorldCat, Amazon, other borrowing services like BookMooch. A much more level arrangement.

# 6 June 2008 at 5:46 pm