I’m finishing up my latest column for ONLINE and have been looking at various book databases for their utility in doing actual business research. In the middle of this, I get an email from Amazon that reads, in part, “We’ve noticed that customers who have expressed interest in Weblogs and Libraries (Chandos Series for Information Professionals) by Laurel, Anne Clyde have also ordered The Academic Research Library in a Decade of Change by Reg, Carr. For this reason, you might like to know that Reg, Carr’s The Academic Research Library in a Decade of Change is now available.

It would really be nice if Amazon could figure out where to put commas (or, in this case, leave them out). It would appear, from their use of commas, that the Weblogs book was written by someone with the last name of Laurel and the Academic Research Library book was authored by a surnamed Reg. Neither is true. The late Laurel Anne Clyde wrote the first one and Oxford University Bodleian Library’s Reg Carr wrote the second one.

Trying to be fancy about last name comma first name definitely didn’t work here.

Speaking of ONLINE, the January/February 2007 issue should be in subscribers’ hands by now. It’s the 30th anniversary issue! I’m impressed and amazed that we’ve been publishing for 30 years. Take a look and let me know what you think!