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They recently had the same thing with Barnes & Noble but it was resolved and Barnes & Noble is again an option so I'm sure the same thing will happen with Amazon. (I'll keep this in the general topics folder for a few days then move it to the Misc topics folder).
I don't think it's going to resolve Jo. It's still ongoing as we speak, I think they are running a test of a large database to be imported. But actually, there is absolute silence from the powers the be. Sorry about not putting it in misc., didn't think of it.
No worries!And these things take time, we'll just have to wait & see what the final outcome is.
The good news is the data is going to come from Ingram. Ingram is the world's largest distributor of English-language books. The database is 14M books and although it isn't complete, it is very accurate. It isn't good on older books that don't sell, and useless for books not issued in the US, so GR must be looking for other databases for those books. Unlike Amazon, Ingram can't change the game as Amazon has. They don't sell to consumers so the deal must be they are selling access to their database, not to GR's member base. I don't know if it will affect any other areas of GR but I would think that the GR authors who have self-published with some of the Amazon imprints (Kindle as well as ebooks) and have not been allowed to sell through Ingram might now have to rethink their marketing strategy. Ingram has its own publishing facilities but will sell books from anyone.
So, despite the disruption, I am very pleased indeed to be getting an independent data source that doesn't see GR as some kind of shopfront which can be manipulated to its best advantage.
Patrick wrote a long comment clearing up a lot of problems in message 560 http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...
I've never been a fan of Amazon, too many strings attached! Thanks for posting that link Petra! And for your input - I haven't had much time yet to look into all of this.
Amazon's data has been great for us for many years, but the terms that come with it have gotten more and more restrictive, and we were finally forced to come to the conclusion that moving to other datasources will be better for Goodreads and our members in so many ways that we had to do it. It may be a little painful, but our aim is to make it as seamless as possible for all our members.
Amazon data that we will stop using includes data such as titles, author names, page counts, and publication dates. For the vast majority of book editions, we are currently importing this data from other sources. Once the imports are done, those few remaining editions for which we haven't found an alternative source of information will be removed from Goodreads.
Member ratings, reviews, and bookshelves are safe, but your data may be moved to a different edition of the book. If we can't find a matching edition, then your review will be attached to a book with no title or author. But the good news is that there's a way you can help.
Today, we are announcing new tools to help Goodreads Librarians source data for the books that need rescuing.
To view these new tools, click here and click "rescue me!" next to any of the books on the list. You will then see a form with data to fill in and some helpful guidelines for where to locate said data.
Early next week, we will be importing a database of 14 million ISBNs from a new source, so many of the books that seem to need rescue today may not actually be in jeopardy. We won't know until we import this new data source. So please don't spend a lot of time rescuing books—we don't want you to do unnecessary work. What we really need is for everyone to try rescuing a few books to see if the tools are working as we hoped. That way, once next week rolls around, we'll be ready to get down to the business or rescuing the books that actually are in jeopardy.
Message on Librarian page from Otis:
Thanks for helping Goodreads remain the amazing resource and special place it is. Hopefully all of this work will result in an even more robust Goodreads database, a database that, with your help, is already one of the best book databases in the world, and will last the ages.
The rescue link: http://www.goodreads.com/rescue_books/at...