Amazon May Be Acquiring Shelfari
It looks like Amazon is acquiring another book-focused property, Shelfari.
As you may recall, Amazon also acquired AbeBooks about three weeks ago. What can we discern from this for the library world? Well, clearly, despite those periodic naysayers predicting the demise of books in a digital world, books are still big business. And, we’re probably going to see a lot more consolidation in the market as more smaller, niche social sites become integrated with more larger players.
So how do we keep libraries visible in the face of such consolidation? It seems to me like it’s up to us to help grow and nurture the sites we love, regardless of their size. When you find a great book and want to tell a friend about it, where do you typically go to get a link you can share? If you’re like most people, I’m guessing it’s Amazon. But Amazon doesn't have to be the only place. In fact, as we’ve seen, there are a myriad of interesting book-related sites out there to connect to. Or why not link to WC.org and promote library usage? The great thing is, we’re all in this together, and we have the power to drive the usage and visibility of the sites and applications we care about.
What do you think? Any predictions on other acquisitions or ideas about keeping libraries visible?
p.s. If you're wondering about ways to share things from WorldCat.org, this may be helpful:
From a detailed record:
From a list:
On August 28, 2008 at 2:16 PM Amanda said:
great idea, guys!
i've just added you to my delicious too!
On August 31, 2008 at 3:44 AM A.T. said:
in current economical downturn, I believe people would be more library attenders than before - so your relevance shall grow sooner
On September 2, 2008 at 10:15 AM Andy Havens said:
A.T: I remember a poster from the children's section of my home-town library that has stuck with me to this day. It showed a couple happy kids surrounded by books, VHS tapes, records, microfiche... the usually plethora of materials. And the caption said:
Libraries will get you through times without money better than money will get you through times without libraries.
That has always seemed true to me. As a kid, I enjoyed the nice parallelism of the statement, and I "got it" immediately. Good marketing, eh?