Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
Policies & Practices
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Widget-based catalog on publisher website unacceptable URL?
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We are not allowed to use Amazon as a source of data. If your widget is taking Amazon info then it is presumably not allowed either. It is not something we want to have to do. GR was a lot easier to keep updated when Amazon was friendly.This is the link to the reasoning:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...
there are 1600 posts in that thread so make sure you have a large cup of coffee handy.
You seem to be using a url to link to the astore; is that not enough?
From the librarian manual (emphasis mine):official URL
This field is for entering a URL officially associated with that book, such as a page on an author's site for the book. It may also be an author or publisher's website for the book, if it contains additional information or resources. Fan sites, reviews, book sellers, Wiki pages or other such pages should NOT be listed.
Since your URL is a link to your amazon store, then it would qualify as a bookseller link (IMO), and should not be used. Also as Banjomike stated, we are not allowed to use Amazon data, or "Amazon derivatives", which is anything that uses Amazon data, like your widget.
Here are some examples of the types of links that the field is used for:
http://www.thirteenreasonswhy.com/
http://www.the-electric-church.com/
FutureCycle wrote: " There is no other URL for the book on our web site, so what else am I supposed to use?"
Leave it blank. It's not required. In fact, very few books use this field.
Mod
Oh, okay! I didn't realize we didn't have to put something there. I thought it was to help facilitate readers in finding the books. The links to Amazon are automatically put in by the astore widget, so I don't think there's any way I can drop those.Would it work to just put the www.futurecycle.org link there, which has a link to our widget-based catalog with the additional information and also resources? Or would it be better to just eliminate it entirely? It's confusing, because we ARE the publisher, so I read the rules to mean that we should use the page that displays the book on our web site. Again, that's the links I put up for our books. I was trying to be thorough....
Also, I'm not finding anything about "user-customizable booklinks" in the help. Are you talking about the Recommendations button?It does not appear our catalog would be eligible for submission to include as one of the links available for users to recommend. We've got 33 titles, with eight more on the 2013 schedule already, but our widget does not allow for search. If anyone has a suggestion for live-updating catalog software that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, we'll consider switching to it. We are a nonprofit press publishing poetry, so that kind of sums up our financial situation.
FutureCycle wrote: "Also, I'm not finding anything about "user-customizable booklinks" in the help. Are you talking about the Recommendations button?It does not appear our catalog would be eligible for submission to..."
The user customisable links are the ones that appear on the book pages. There's probably an easier way to get to them than this, but here goes:
clicking on the example link: Book page
Under the book info are three links.
Depending on where you live the first link will say any of the following: barnes and noble / kobo / Bookworld. The second link will be something like "buy this book" and the third will say "book links".
The 2nd and 3rd links are pull down menus. If you click "more" you're taken to a page where you can see the list of vendors. This is a customised list based on each user's preference.
Clicking "Customize this link" at the top of the list allows each user to change the order of the vendors listed or add/remove additional vendors.
That's very helpful, Jennifer. Thanks. Now I just need to know if it would be better to put our web site home page or nothing in the URL for the library listing. I've got to go in and revise all those links I did wrong, but I don't want to do it until I know which is best to use.Anyone?
I guess if it was me, I'd leave the URL field blank.
That's what I'll do then. Thanks.
We use a widget that is tied to Amazon as our catalog so all of our info is automatically updated anytime Amazon puts our books on sale or we run free promotions. Editing this information manually is not feasible, so the widget has been a real boon for us. But I got slapped when I put in the URL from the widget pertaining to the specific book I am adding (the widget shows the book description and author bio, too). There is no other URL for the book on our web site, so what else am I supposed to use?
I thought the URL was as much for directing potential readers to the publisher's site where they can find out more about a book as it is for verification of the book's actual existence. Have I misunderstood? What alternative is there to the way I'm doing it now?