Amazon
From LIS 460 Summer 2007
What it is
Amazon.com is an enormous online store that sells used and new books, music, DVDs, video games, software, and pretty much anything else you could possibly want at school or at home. On the Amazon website under the Corporate Accounts section they have a subsection for Libraries and one for K-12, which is primarily what is of interest to those in the school library field.
Although Amazon sells a huge variety of items, it started as an online bookstore, and my focus here is on the Amazon bookstore. The Wikipedia article has more information about the history of Amazon.
Follow a link to the Library Processing page for:
- labels
- Mylar book jackets
- various ways to receive MARC records for purchased books
- K-12 store include both children's and young adult books and professional development
- educational DVDs
- new releases in Education
Amazon features
The Amazon bookstore has some great features that make it incredibly useful for anyone who reads books, particularly for those who are looking for new books to read. Amazon has very up-to-date information about books, if you come across a book that is not in print yet you it gives you the release date as soon as it is available. It features new and future releases. Amazon also maintains up-to-date information about their bestsellers and the NYT bestsellers. They have a book blog (they have other blogs as well for music, video, etc) written by the editors that is updated regularly, and they offer podcasts of interviews with authors, editors, and other big names in the book, music, and movie industries (Amazon wire), and audiobook previews (BookClips).
To help you find books, they are assigned subject headings and categories by Amazon, and users can assign tags to books as well, so you can search or browse by customer tags. Users can also make search suggestions, or attach a search term to an item. Amazon provides suggestions based on your previous purchases and the books you have viewed during that session or in a previous session if you are logged in. When you are looking at a book, Amazon lists other books that users who purchased this book also purchased, and books that users ultimately bought after viewing this book.
Once you have located a book you want to consider purchasing, Amazon presents options for purchasing the book new or used, in various formats (audiobooks, video, large print, etc), from different retailers and in different conditions (if used). There are links to discussion forums about the book if any are available, and links to active discussions about the book you have selected in related forums. You can also find lists in which the book was included. Some books even have readability and other text statistics.
And of course, Amazon is known for low prices, fast, free shipping, and easy online ordering.
Use of Amazon in school libraries
Amazon.com has a lot of features that would be particularly useful for students, teachers, and school librarians. To expand on some of the features described above:
There is a section for children's books in Spanish, you can find children's books by age, genre, whether or not they are educational, and young adult books by genre or author.
Being able to read reviews by students, teachers, and parents would be useful for students deciding which books to read, school librarians deciding which books to purchase, and teachers deciding which books to assign as required or optional reading. All of the cross-referencing is great for this purpose as well; if a student has read a book he really liked, and wants to find similar books, there are many different paths to finding books that are related in various ways. Checking out the bestsellers in various categories (children, teens, education, etc), listening to the podcasts, reading the blog, and viewing new and future releases and related discussion forums might also help with collection development decisions. Students, teachers, or school library teachers can search Listmania!, the Amazon database of user-created lists, or find a book they like and view lists on which that book appears. Tags are another way the school community can find books that they might like, especially since other users (many like themselves) have created the tags.
The fact that any registered user can read and write book reviews means that when teachers assign book review or book report they can give students the opportunity to actually post their reviews in a place where they will be read. Teachers could also have students post on discussion boards, or create lists. Students could create lists for other students to use, teachers could create lists for their students or for parents, or the school library teacher can create lists that include books available at the library.
