A heavy price

19.10.11 | Johnny de Falbe

The British Library says it is "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". But users have always had an alternative method: it is called going to a bookshop.

Are the British Library's directors unaware that Britain has a great many very good bookshops? If so, they should discover them and learn what booksellers do besides simply taking money for products. If not, do they think everyone else attaches so little value to a diversity of bookshops and booksellers? Ignoring the whole UK book trade in favour of Amazon is, at least, a scathing indictment of our trade. I had always fondly supposed that the British Library, of all people/institutions, would support British bookshops.

Although the British Library has many private donors, it is primarily supported by public funds. Amazon is not a public information service: it is an aggressively competitive retailer. In effect, the taxes paid by UK booksellers are being used for the promotion of a single competitor, whose interests are in direct conflict. This is being done in the name of information which is anyway incomplete and partial—it does not match the British Library's—and carries a heavy price (hegemony), which will be regretted if it is paid.

It is perhaps worth explaining why I spotted the link in the first place. I happened to be at the London's Southbank for an afternoon of readings on National Poetry Day, where, among others, I heard a poet called Jo Bell read some wonderful poems from a volume she published some years ago called Navigational. Thinking it might be fun to bring these to the attention of my customers, I looked the book up on Nielsen but it did not appear to be in print. To get the publication details, I looked it up on the British Library catalogue, where I found what I wanted. Curious to see what a link to Amazon could offer, I discovered that Amazon had no record of the book, but they offered instead to sell me a range of other titles. The link added nothing but a sales platform for Amazon. It seems highly contentious that Amazon should be granted this over other booksellers at the taxpayer's expense.

From the British Library's initial response, I had assumed that the link had been introduced as it were by accident by their technical department and would be quickly removed ("Oops!"). Their decision to stand by it is foolish and pernicious because it misleads the public, and offensive and dangerous for all booksellers besides Amazon, both new and secondhand.

If Amazon are paying for their privileged status on the BL website, this should be clearly stated. If they don't pay, they should do so, just as any retailer would be expected to pay for advertising space. Otherwise the Booksellers' Association should work hard to have this link removed.

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