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"Goodreads celebrates it's Independence today. Feels great to be free," founder Otis Y. Chandler tweets. "We will celebrate January 30th for years to come!"
The popular book site has stopped drawing its metadata on individual books — titles, authors' names, publication date and covers — from Amazon's API. Instead, Goodreads is tapping a number of sources that Chandler lists.
Ingram, the largest wholesaler of books in the U.S., is our new primary data partner, and our agreement with them will ensure accurate and reliable information for the foreseeable future. In addition to Ingram, we are working with dozens of other open data sources, such as libraries, to find book records from all over the world (see below for a list). This is an exciting moment, and we're confident that this change will be better for the members of Goodreads and long-term success of the site.
Goodreads launched here in 2007. Here's what it says about itself now:
"Goodreads is the largest site for readers and book recommendations in the world. We have more than 6,900,000 members who have added more than 240,000,000 books to their shelves. A home for casual readers and bona-fide bookworms alike, Goodreads users recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they've read and would like to read, find their next favorite book, form book clubs and much more."