Canadian Bookshelf is a one-of-a-kind community for discovering, discussing, and indulging in Canadian books. Fuelled by the largest collection of Canadian books ever assembled, Canadian Bookshelf makes it easier to find your next great Canadian read.
If you haven’t already visited, Canadian Bookshelf, I would highly recommend you take a little time to do so. The site itself looks great and there is a plethora of great (Canadian) content already there with more to come. I won’t go into all the features and functions of the site here as you can just go and try it out or read about it on their blog, but I will point out why we like this project in one word: collaboration.
The collaborative forces responsible for getting Canadian Bookshelf built and launched run deep. Take some ACP, CPC, government (Canada Book Fund and OMDC), mix in some techie partners (BookNet, Mugo Web, Turner-Riggs and others), add in a very big dose of great Canadian publishers, authors and readers and you end up with a platform for discovering Canadian “bookish” content. The collaborative nature of the project means that everyone has an opportunity to participate—we also like that.
I would be required to revoke my BookNet Staff Credentials if I didn’t at least mention data at some point in this post. (I’m sure you knew it was coming, right?) Another reason we like Canadian Bookshelf is because it uses quality bibliographic data to help showcase books. We know that there is a lot of hard work required by publishers (and others) in collating and continually improving their bibliographic data, and so we are excited when we can see the hard work bare some fruit. There is a direct correlation between how titles look on Canadian Bookshelf and the quality of their bibliographic data. To be flippant:
- structured data (i.e. ONIX) = good
- more (as in quantity) structured data = better
- more quality structured data = bestest
The more accessible and good bibliographic data there is about a book, the better readers will be able to discover that book. It will look better on Canadian Bookshelf, e-commerce sites, your own web sites and anywhere else that is interested in discovering and showcasing it. Make sure those books that took so long to create get the showcase they deserve!
Kudos to all the Canadian Bookshelf collaborators.
A useful link: A guide to ONIX for marketing [PDF].
