Amazon.com : a librarian's tool

We should teach our readers to use Amazon.com

Fish for a man and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.

Search for a man/woman and his/her information needs will be met for a day. Teach a man/woman to search and he/she can locate the information he/she needs for a lifetime

Just read a book you really enjoyed and looking for something similar?

Try www.amazon.com

Three places all on the same page, Amazon offers some great suggestions. First, Amazon always offers another similar book (buy two and get a 5% discount). Secondly, Amazon provides a list of books "Customers who bought this item also bought." Third, Amazon provides a seond list "What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item."

These suggestions will keep you going for a while but there's more, much more.

Amazon provides a forum
in which to connect readers
with similar reading habits

At Amazon you will find what other people have to say about a book. Oftentimes you can catch another point of view or even capture an insight. Children should be using amazon when they are writing their book reports. They can learn to make intelligent statements like this:

Although the book received 5 stars from 52 reviewers on Amazon.com, the book only averages 4 stars.

Above all, at Amazon, you can easily find people with similar reading habits. You can see all the other books that the reviewer has read by clicking on the link See all my reviews.

Now, THIS should inspire your readers to submit their own reviews to Amazon. Once you write a review on Amazon, you will create a profile. From the profile page you can easily link with these other readers.

Worried that your patrons won't need you anymore? Nonsense. Once your patrons write their first reviews invite them to be your friend (on Amazon). Once you've created a link within your profile, you can monitor their activity (and visa versa). This means that you will learn about the books they review and the purchases they make.