Change in book covers & reviews in InfoSoup

We are going to be switching to a new vendor for book jackets and summaries. The switch should take place this afternoon. Once the change is in place here are the differences you will see.

1. The covers will be a little larger.
2. When you click on the cover (either from the brief record or the full record) a summary page will open in a frame below. On the summary page you might see anything from a brief summary, publishers comments, book club guide, or a lengthy review from BookPage. Just click on "Back to Catalog" to return to the previous screen.
3. On the full record page, the Reviews & Summaries link will be replaced by and Additional Info link. This link will be the same as clicking on the cover.
4. We will no longer have Publishers Weekly or Library Journal reviews through Syndetics. These can usually be found on the Amazon page or by searching EBSCO from the links on the full record page. While we lose some convenience with this, our statistics show that the syndetics reviews were getting limited use.

You can see the new book covers on our development server at http://www.infosoup.org:2082

Here are a couple of examples

http://www.infosoup.org:2082/record=b1703003~S77 (With Review)
http://www.infosoup.org:2082/record=b1446333~S77 (Generic)

We apologize for the short notice. We have been looking at this switch for a while, but we were uncertain until very recently that the new vendor (BookLetters) would have their product ready in time. Our contract with Syndetics has run out so we needed to move quickly.

Why the switch? Two main reasons. One is that we believe BookLetters will provide a faster service. We have had numerous slowdown issues with syndetics over the years. This is something we will keep an eye on with the new service. The second is that we will be saving money which we hope to put toward other catalog enhancements. Please let me know if you have any questions or notice any problems.

Thanks,

Evan