10 November 1998
THE bookworms at Whitehorse-Manningham regional library love books so much they want you to buy some.
The library has teamed with Dymocks booksellers to offer sales direct through Whitehorse's online Internet catalogue.
Although bounties for directed traffic are common in the commercial online world, it's a radical move for the city library, whose raison d'etre traditionally has been to lend books rather than sell them. According to chief librarian, Theresa White, it's an example of how the sector is becoming more responsive to business imperatives in an age of shrinking public funding. ``It's radical for libraries because it's a commercial thing," White said. ``But we argue it's an extra service for lenders. It sends a message to the wider community that we're interested in e-commerce on the Net."
Visitors to the library Web site will be offered the choice of the book they are searching for if these are not available through its GeoWeb catalogue system. The library has a catalogue of about 250,000 items, and provides three million loans a year to its 140,000 members. Rather than provide the back-end e-commerce systems, an expensive and time-consuming task, the library passes traffic through to Dymocks booksellers and receives a commission in return on any sales. .
Local booksellers have come under increasing pressure from US-based online store, Amazon.com. Alliances like that between Whitehorse Library and Dymocks help Australian firms compete more effectively, leveraging their local presence.
White said senior library officials were a little wary of the scheme when it was first proposed, but have since warmed to the idea. ``Some libraries have this thing where you can't be seen to be dealing with money. That's crazy because you need money to provide resources. We're part of the information economy and we want to participate where we can."
http://www.wev.vic.gov.au/boxhill.htm