Jeff Trzeciak, our UL at McMaster, talks in his blog about our decision to join the Amazon Associates program. Associates provide links from their website to specific products or categories of products on the Amazon site.

At McMaster, we’re linking from our catalogue. When a user clicks on a title in a search results list, they see a detailed information screen. We’ve inserted the Amazon link into this window as a button. Clicking the button opens a new browser window (preserving their original search results) showing the Amazon information page for that book. Associates earn a small commission from Amazon for each sale made through their links, which we will put back into our book budget.

I had a hand in getting this started (and feel a certain urge to duck as I say that), so I’m keen to see if our users take to it. We’ve been live less than 24 hours and are already seeing some activity. I’m hopeful that this will be viewed as positive addition to our services.