The Bookseller has an article on the British Library reinstituting a controversial linking scheme in its on-line catalog that added a link to Amazon’s catalog from each book entry. It had removed the scheme last week in response to complaints by booksellers, but after consideration was reinstated “because of its usefulness for library users seeking further information about collection items.” I do have to admit, Amazon is a pretty comprehensive source of detailed information (including ISBNs), reviews, and so forth for most books.
The library said the Amazon pilot was set up "with the aim of providing users with the choice of an alternative method of obtaining a title if, for some reason, it is not available in the Library’s Reading Rooms. It also offered users a rich source of additional information for many titles (book jacket images, contents pages etc) that supplemented the data the Library itself was able to provide." The library added the link was "simple and inexpensive to implement".
Nowhere to be found in the article is any mention at all of whether these links count as “affiliate” links, meaning the library would get a kickback every time someone bought an Amazon title after being directed there from its catalog. The library simply refers to it as a “pre-built generic link that comes out of the box” with the software used to build the catalog.
Personally, I hope they get the affiliate kickback. If they’re going to link to Amazon’s site anyway, they might as well—especially given how drastically the UK government has been slashing budgetary support for libraries lately. And what, exactly, have the complaining booksellers done for libraries lately?
>>Personally, I hope they get the affiliate kickback.
I studied the links in the catalog and they seem to have an affiliate code. My guess is that the affiliate code belongs to the company that made the website or to one of the programmers that made the website software. There is probably a programmer that is raking in a couple thousand a month on affiliate fees and no one is the wiser. If they pull the Amazon links their little revenue stream will dry up. Here is the affiliate code I found in the link — searourcata-21