Re: [IUG] Amazon cover art on 2006 and WebPac Pro

["Leo Papa" <papal at cantonpl dot org>]

You are too kind, Deb.  All I do is steal (well borrow) hacks off the real
technical geniuses in our organization. I've thought about linking to
Amazon reviews, as well, but haven't investigated the specific links in
Amazon pages to their review sections.

I was poking around on the Amazon affiliate pages, which requires an
account, and there are many resources for posting links to Amazon.  There
may be something in there pertaining to reviews but I did not run across
it.

The recent comment (Bob Frapp?) about registering as an Amazon affiliate
in order to use their images, causes me to think a bit deeper about
copyright issues.  The Amazon links and even an Amazon button, has for
some time been included in the WebOPAC downloads from Innovative.  It
never dawned on me that it would require registration with Amazon if we
were to use them.

While I don't have any problem signing up as an affiliate, and have had a
personal account for years, it is something that our administrative team
and possibly our Board will want to discuss before making such a
committment for the library.

The other issue in the back of my mind, which I have been hesitant to
bring up, is the issue of competition and how the use of Amazon's images
and possibly reviews affects vendors.

I think Amazon images could undermine sales content providers such as
Syndetics, ContentCafe, and BookPage. But the Amazon links involve the
library in a commercial enterprise, which may not be desirable for
everyone. If we become an Amazon affiliate, we will still keep Syndetics
reviews because we want their links to profesional sources.

Amazon reviews, on the other hand, may be seen as competing with
Innovative's Patron Reviews.  But, while linking to Amazon images already
gives patrons proximity to Amazon's somewhat ubiquitous reviewers,
Innovative's product allows us to emphasize our local user community.

Libraries with tight budgets may find linking to Amazon a good trade off,
and in some cases, better than having nothing, and some may prefer Amazon.
 But to get back to the original issue I raises, I suppose it would be
prudent to contact Amazon about linking directly to reviews, if it is
technically possible, and possibly for use of their images if one is not
an affiliate.

Leo


Deb Bergeron wrote:
> Leo,
>
> You are creative.  While we don't use Syndetics, we would like to
> extract the Amazon.com reviews into our catalog.  Any idea how to do THAT?
>
> Thanks
> deb
>
> Leo Papa wrote:
>> On a slightly different tangent...
>>
>> I was playing around with settings for Amazon and Syndetics in the
>> BIBIMAGE  and WEBADDRESS wwwoptions, and was able to configure WEBADRESS
>> so that it would link to Syndetic review if we had an item, and pass the
>> search on to Amazon if we didn't.  If anyone is interested in the syntax
>> I'll be glad to provide it.
>>
>> Syndetics has come out with a "compound" image, that provides links to
>> reviews out of the BIBIMAGE wwwoption, expressed in a link below the
>> cover
>> art.  So, we will probably not use this 'hybrid' WEBADDRESS syntax, and
>> just use that wwwoption for Amazon, should we decide to affiliate with
>> them.
>>
>> I'm have added an (personal) affiliate ID to WEBADDRESS and it didn't
>> break the wwwoption functioning, but we'll have to go live before we can
>> test if it is really working.  No one is going to buy books off of our
>> staging port.  If it works our library is considering becomming an
>> affiliate. If anyone else is already testing or has an Amazon
>> affiliation
>> working, I'd like to connect with them.
>>
>> Leo Papa
>> Canton Public Library
>>
>> John Dillon wrote:
>>
>>> Deb,
>>>
>>> Here's a couple guesses:
>>>
>>> 1.  Looks like you have 3 occurences of the BIBIMAGE woption in your
>>> port 2082 wwwoptions table, one for syndetics and two for amazon.
>>> Maybe
>>> you want to delete (or comment out) at least one of the amazon ones, or
>>> two of the 3 while testing.  I think I've seen that sometimes an
>>> upgrade
>>> process (say from 2005 to 2006) will in effect make a commented-out
>>> line
>>> (using # character) no longer commented out.
>>>
>>> 2.  After upgrading to 2005 and/or WebBridge, we also got better
>>> results
>>> by changing the BIBIMAGE subfield I to small i, per #106904 in our 2006
>>> manual under the heading Content Linking and Other Resources Options.
>>> We are at 2006 but not WebPac Pro.
>>>
>>> Hope this helps!
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>>
>>> ~~~~~~~~~~~
>>> John Dillon
>>> Library Systems and Technical Services
>>> Geisel Library
>>> Saint Anselm College
>>> 603.641.7349
>>> jdillon at anselm dot edu
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org
>>>> [mailto:innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org] On Behalf Of Deb Bergeron
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 2:02 PM
>>>> To: IUG INNOPAC List
>>>> Subject: [IUG] Amazon cover art on 2006 and WebPac Pro
>>>>
>>>> Everyone, Anyone,
>>>>
>>>> We just upgraded to 2006 this morning and will be upgrading
>>>> to WebPac Pro tomorrow morning.  We're now having problems
>>>> with the cover art link from Amazon.  Sometimes we get an
>>>> error message and sometimes not.
>>>>
>>>> Our
>>>> BIBIMAGE=http://images.amazon.com/images/P/%s.01.00TLZZZZ|i|ht
>>>>
>>> tp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/%s/
>>>
>>>> Has anyone else encountered this behavior?  Anyone know how to fix it?
>>>>
>>>> You can see the error message by going into our STAGING port at
>>>> http://clicnet.clic.edu:2082 and searching for 'Tree of
>>>> Life.' Some of the cover art will link to Amazon just fine
>>>> and others not.
>>>>
>>>> Please let me know if you have found a fix for this.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>> deb
>>>>
>>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>
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-- 
Technology Department Head
Canton Public Library
(734) 397-0999 x160