John Miedema

What are Your Essential Book Links?

5 March 2009 7 Comments

This entry is part 3 of 16 in the series Building OpenBook 2.0

When you spot a book on the web, and want to know more, what links are most valuable to you?

OpenBook currently provides a link to Open Library, to a publisher’s website, and to WorldCat. OpenBook 2.0 will have the ability to automatically generate links to virtually any book record that can be found through an ISBN or other standard bibliographic data. I can’t display them all by default, so I need to identify the essential links.

I’m thinking of adding a link to Amazon for book purchases, and a link to LibraryThing for social data.

So what are your essential book links?

Series Navigation«Sneak Peak at OpenBook Options PanelOpenBook’s Enhanced ‘Find in a Library’ Feature»

7 Comments »

wlayton said:

Amazon and LibraryThing are the only two that I visit.

# 5 March 2009 at 8:56 am

Mark said:

I prefer WorldCat for several reasons. If someone really wants to buy the thing there is a link to Amazon (which not everyone knows, I guess).

Amazon seems to be the de facto standard link on the web, even with many library-types. This bothers me to no end but I try to let it go.

LibraryThing I love and use but pretty much not socially. I also think the data available is lacking in many ways and while their software does some useful things it does some not so useful (for me) things. I would almost never link to LT. But that may be just me.

I want to see Open Library take off and I have my fingers crossed, along with having done a little work in it.

Thus, these 4, if doable, in my opinion.

# 5 March 2009 at 9:24 am

John (author) said:

Thanks Warren and Mark.

So there were be 5-6 links in total in the default configuration:

- Open Library book record (by clicking the cover or title link)
- Open Library author record (by clicking the author link)
- Publisher (by clicking the publisher link if provided by the user)
- “Find in a Library” (either WorldCat, or a specific library if the OpenUrl resolver is configured in the new options panel)
- LibraryThing
- Amazon (including an affiliate id for those who use one)

OpenBook 2 will let users add or remove links, but the above will be the default set, barring any further good ideas.

# 5 March 2009 at 12:39 pm

Greg said:

Wandering through blogospere & stumbled upon your site. Love your take on “slow reading” – the concept, your blog entry, not the book (as I obviously haven’t seen that yet.)

Now I have to figure out what the heck OpenBook is. I have just started using LibraryThing, and like Mark above, find it useful for many things but very difficult for others. See my recent post (third paragraph) for some specific frustrations [http://serendipitous-librarian.blogspot.com/2009/02/woohoo-what-great-job.html].

Main reason for leaving note here is to suggest depth of content on Barnes & Noble website as compared to Amazon. Many librarians I have talked to find B&N far more useful as a tool than Amazon. Please check it out if you have a chance. Link attached is specifically for books but other tabs lead to other products [ http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/books-bestselling-books/379001098/?btob=I

# 7 March 2009 at 10:28 pm

John (author) said:

Hi Greg, OpenBook inserts book covers and other book data into WordPress posts. I will add B&N link as an option for users, though I will likely use Amazon as a default, only because it is the most popular one.

I’m still considering make all commercial links just options, and not part of the default set of links.

# 8 March 2009 at 10:13 pm

Tracy said:

I am one of those librarians Greg mentioned who prefers B&N to Amazon. I also prefer Shelfari to Library Thing and have found that patrons find it much more visually appealing.

# 26 March 2009 at 5:33 pm

John (author) said:

“Tracy”, you’ve been caught by the astro-turfing police. See almost the same comment by “Lisa Huff” here: http://sachachua.com/wp/2008/07/03/taking-book-notes/. I made the same criticism there. I have no loyalty to LibraryThing, but Shelfari really gets on my nerves with its ongoing astro-turfing. Fake viral marketing is a huge turn off.

# 26 March 2009 at 6:06 pm