BookLikes hasn't communicated officially on this, but BL librarians think that Amazon may have used the European data protection regulations, which entered into force in May of last year, as a pretext to cut off BL's access to Amazon's book data stream. Back in 2014 or 2015, BL signed an agreement with Amazon about the use of their stream, and they communicated at the time that henceforth (as per Amazon's conditions) this would be their only data source. This data source pretty much dried out in the spring of 2018 -- which is when the new data protection regs took effect (note: the data stream is provided by Amazon.com; i.e., a company outside the EU). If you were on Goodreads in 2013-2014, you may remember that Amazon used similar tactics there, only minus European regs (but "use our data exclusively or else"), in order to compel the then-Goodreads owners to play along with their game (which in turn was shortly followed by Amazon's wholesale purchase of GR). BookLikes is too small fry for Amazon to be interested in purchasing the site, so they're apparently just trying to sideline it into oblivion by strangling their access to new book data.
THAT SAID, there actually still is a way to at least add books relatively painlessly: the "shelve it" widget, which is a little black book-like icon / symbol on your bookshelf page *in admin mode* (i.e., with the same wooden top and green menu as your dashboard):
1) Drag the widget to your browser's menu bar.
2) Find the book you want to add on any Amazon site.
If it is NOT Amazon.co.uk, change the beginning of the product page's URL to "amazon.co.uk". (Note: The widget *only* works with Amazon.co.uk at this point. However, since the URLs of all Amazon sites are identical except for the site / Amazon subsidiary identifier at the beginning, it is easy to make the switch. The only products with which this doesn't work are Audible audiobooks and kindle editions, which have country / market-specific ASINs -- which are built into the URLs -- instead of ISBNs.)
3) To be on the safe side, copy and save the cover image to your computer.
4) Hit the "shelve it" icon in your browser's menu bar. This should cause the book data to be imported to BookLikes from the Amazon.co.uk product page. The only thing that we've found doesn't always get imported (although it should) is the cover image, which is why you should save it to your computer before hitting "shelve it". Even without opening the BL book page's "edit" window, you can add the cover image to the book page by clicking on the green "add cover" bar below the cover place holder image.
Eh voilà! New book page created.
Not perfect -- and there is no way of telling if and when this situation is going to change -- but at least it's a reasonably quick workaround for the time being.
Thanks for the info. I have tried this feature before, and found it was just as much work. It's my own fault, as I like to shelf the actual book I read. Since this feature pulls from UK publication details, I end up having to change nearly every detail--about the only thing that stays the same is the title and the author. Maybe I just shouldn't be so picky, but I so prefer my books to match what I actually read. I may just have to get over it.
5 years ago
Chris, I am with you. I want my edition or nothing at all--and I read Audible.
I have basically given up on the DB and am now here for the book suggestions and the camraderie--and the games. If Amazon UK doesn't have it, then I don't bother to shelve it. I have stop sending corrections to the librarians; it is an exercise in futility. Not dissing the librarians, just the waste of their time correcting past errors when there are many more important curatorial tasks that need doing (the big picture stuff). I applaud the effort that was made earlier in the year to add hundreds of new titles and editions.
I googled the owners of the website to see what I could learn and it seems they have moved on to a new project. Seems Elvis may have left the building and the inmates are running the asylum. Anything that is going to happen here now is going to be done by those active participants who have the wherewithal to do it. But, so what. As long as they don't tear down the playground, we can continue to play here. Right?
The owners of the site are (and have always been) equity investors. Dawid and Joanna Piaskowski, who used to run the site (and act as officers for corporate registration purposes), came up with the idea for BookLikes; but they turned to corporate investment companies in order to actually set it up, and there's no indication that investment has been pulled (if it had, the site would no longer exist). When Dawid and Joanna moved on, the owners (= investment shareholders) turned the actual technical running of the site over to a German company that specializes in these things, and which for example takes care of renewing the domain every year (most recently in May 2019). But they are obviously not empowered -- nor inclined -- to interact with the users of the site; their job is strictly to make sure that it runs fine from a technical point of view. Kate ("Kate says ..."), who was community interface manager, didn't return from a leave of absence she took last summer; possibly for health reasons (this is "reading between the lines" based speculation, though), and so far hasn't been replaced.
There is every indication the owners are running the site so it doesn't incur a loss -- they want to protect their investment -- but they're not out for making a profit, either. Hence, nothing is being done about site performance issues that exceed the remit of the caretaker company running the technical side of things (such as the book database). Murder by Death, far and away the most active and innovative of us librarians, came up with a way to import basically all of the big publishers' spring 2019 catalogues into the book database but, like all of us, she's a volunteer and could only do this while time allowed. So as Peregrinations said, ultimately it really comes down to how much each of us cares about this community. For me, this is my online home ... and adding books and helping others is a "price" I'm more than happy to pay to help keeping it alive. But of course, everybody has their own priorities! :)
It's been on my radar to ramp up the imports again, but things in RL have been absurdly busy, and I'm a little afraid of trying to do it during Halloween Bingo, both because of increased site traffic, and reliance on the rest of the BL volunteers for adding the covers.
I honestly just set aside a day I am adding all of the new books at this point. I read a lot of new releases but the Kindle versions and they are not on here for the most part. So I add those and other ebooks.
THAT SAID, there actually still is a way to at least add books relatively painlessly: the "shelve it" widget, which is a little black book-like icon / symbol on your bookshelf page *in admin mode* (i.e., with the same wooden top and green menu as your dashboard):
1) Drag the widget to your browser's menu bar.
2) Find the book you want to add on any Amazon site.
If it is NOT Amazon.co.uk, change the beginning of the product page's URL to "amazon.co.uk". (Note: The widget *only* works with Amazon.co.uk at this point. However, since the URLs of all Amazon sites are identical except for the site / Amazon subsidiary identifier at the beginning, it is easy to make the switch. The only products with which this doesn't work are Audible audiobooks and kindle editions, which have country / market-specific ASINs -- which are built into the URLs -- instead of ISBNs.)
3) To be on the safe side, copy and save the cover image to your computer.
4) Hit the "shelve it" icon in your browser's menu bar. This should cause the book data to be imported to BookLikes from the Amazon.co.uk product page. The only thing that we've found doesn't always get imported (although it should) is the cover image, which is why you should save it to your computer before hitting "shelve it". Even without opening the BL book page's "edit" window, you can add the cover image to the book page by clicking on the green "add cover" bar below the cover place holder image.
Eh voilà! New book page created.
Not perfect -- and there is no way of telling if and when this situation is going to change -- but at least it's a reasonably quick workaround for the time being.
I have basically given up on the DB and am now here for the book suggestions and the camraderie--and the games. If Amazon UK doesn't have it, then I don't bother to shelve it. I have stop sending corrections to the librarians; it is an exercise in futility. Not dissing the librarians, just the waste of their time correcting past errors when there are many more important curatorial tasks that need doing (the big picture stuff). I applaud the effort that was made earlier in the year to add hundreds of new titles and editions.
I googled the owners of the website to see what I could learn and it seems they have moved on to a new project. Seems Elvis may have left the building and the inmates are running the asylum. Anything that is going to happen here now is going to be done by those active participants who have the wherewithal to do it. But, so what. As long as they don't tear down the playground, we can continue to play here. Right?
There is every indication the owners are running the site so it doesn't incur a loss -- they want to protect their investment -- but they're not out for making a profit, either. Hence, nothing is being done about site performance issues that exceed the remit of the caretaker company running the technical side of things (such as the book database). Murder by Death, far and away the most active and innovative of us librarians, came up with a way to import basically all of the big publishers' spring 2019 catalogues into the book database but, like all of us, she's a volunteer and could only do this while time allowed. So as Peregrinations said, ultimately it really comes down to how much each of us cares about this community. For me, this is my online home ... and adding books and helping others is a "price" I'm more than happy to pay to help keeping it alive. But of course, everybody has their own priorities! :)