Opening Session Deep Dive · Monday, April 13
Holbrook Sample — CTLO, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County (CHPL)
Moses Lai — Sr. Technical Product Manager, Amazon
Order books from Amazon Business, download brief MARC records with order info, load into the ILS. EDI is the backbone.
Amazon's "grid" technology lets libraries add structured metadata — fund codes, locations, processing instructions — to orders before they flow into EDI.
Sierra acquisitions API is being developed on the III side to support this integration.
Amazon has had procurement tools broadly, but has been focused on libraries for less than 1 year.
MARC record quality has been improved. More features coming. Looking for additional partnerships.
Positions Amazon as a primary materials vendor (competing with B&T), not just a la carte.
Patron-driven acquisitions mentioned as a future possibility.
Acquisitions/selection experts on CHPL staff. Early meetings included cataloging, processing, fiscal office, MSA, and cataloging teams.
Outsource MARC records (brief records from Amazon supplemented).
Launched mid-April 2026.
Half the budget goes to physical materials. Purchase order driven workflow. EDI enforces the structure — the more methodical the work, the better.
Selectors still use Library Hub for pre-pub work. Currently working out fund mapping between Amazon and ILS.
Aligning Amazon Business tools with existing workflows was essential.
