Amazon, PDA, and Library Sales for Books

Amazon’s sales to libraries and patron-driven acquisitions have many interesting marketplace parallels, but Amazon works only with print for libraries, whereas PDA is mostly digital. This could lead Amazon to enter the PDA market through acquisition.

The Bookstore in the Library

PDA programs set up a kind of bookstore within library OPACs. It is possible to expand the range of these programs to enable the purchase of books by individuals on their own account–a new service for patrons and an income stream for libraries and publishers alike.

Hawking Radiation: Figuring Out How Many Books Are Sold to Libraries

An odd circumstance of the book business is that no one really knows which books are sold to libraries and how important libraries are to overall book sales. At the heart of the problem is the fact that Amazon, which sells books to libraries, does not share any sales data. This post suggests a couple ways to get at that data in the face of Amazon’s obstinacy.