"British Library Attacked for Amazon Link"
Will we be hearing the following concern from others in the UK, US, and elsewhere going forward? We would not surprised.
From The Bookseller:
The British Library has come under fire from booksellers for including a link to online giant Amazon.co.uk on entries in its public online catalogue. The catalogue lists more than 13 million items in the British Library’s collection, detailing the library’s cataloguing details in each case, together with general information on each book. There is also a final field, “This item in Amazon.co.uk”, on each record. This field links directly to the relevant page on Amazon, where the book can be bought. If the title is not among Amazon’s stock, the page offers “More titles to consider” instead.
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Waterstone’s m.d. James Daunt criticised the development, saying: “It’s disappointing to say the least that a very British institution is driving readers away from local libraries and high street bookshops. In an environment where high street booksellers and libraries face huge pressures, it is a shame that the British Library choose to give their endorsement to one aggressively commercial organisation.”
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Filed under: Libraries
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.