Mild puzzlement

[jhetley]

(For the SMsOTU or other sources of enlightment)

Our local library's on-line "card catalog" has started showing cover art as well as shelving info, etc, when you click on a particular book. Seems like a waste of bandwidth and storage, but who am I to say? Are they trying to compete with amazon?

This has to be retroactive to some extent, 'cause I checked on some books from back in the '90s. But they don't have pix on all the older listings.

Comments

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Bandwidth is relatively cheap.

Is it possible that they are trying to entice people to read more by showing covers? I'm more likely to pick up a book by an author I haven't heard of if the cover is interesting.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Bandwidth may be _relatively_ cheap, but some of us are fossilized in the dial-up strata.

I checked with my SMOTU sister and she says that the NYPL is also moving in this direction. Only use for it _she_ can see is, to try and pin down the "I want something like the book I read last month but I can't remember the title or the author" crowd. Show them pictures and they might recognize something.

Cover art is _supposed_ to make you want to pick up the book, but the teeny-tiny pictures on the library site leave a lot to be desired. Smaller than the LJ icons.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Oh aye. We know all about dial-up. 40 year old dry pair that goes out when it rains. 8 kilobits connection to the Internet, the intranet being 100Mb.