When you click to order a book, you're given the option to "Order More From Member"--meaning, to look at the Bookshelf of the swapper whose book you're ordering, to see if they have any other books you'd like to order. When you get there, it's not the usual view of a Bookshelf: it has buttons that say "Add" and a counter in the upper righthand corner for keeping track of how many books you've added. (Is this a new look? I don't remember that it looked this way before, but maybe I just didn't notice.)

So far, so good. I like this option.  I also find it fascinating: so far, the books I've ordered have been kind of an "odd man out" on these swappers' Bookshelves--the one book that is unlike all the others, or else, *all* of their books are "odd men." Surely I'm not the only person doing this--trying to imagine how a particular collection of books came together into a single person's possession. Isn't it fun? (Maybe we should break out a new thread on this topic. <grin>.

OK. Here's what I'm frustrated about: when you're looking at the books on the swapper's Bookshelf, the ones you're considering whether to "Add" to your order, naturally you want to know as much as possible about them. So you click on the linked (blue) words "More Details," and you get the description. And that's all you get. There's nothing else to click on. The cover image, the title of the book, and the author's name--none of those are linked. There's no way to get to the (what is it called, anyway?) the "detail page" (?)--the page with links to reviews by swappers, a link to the author's catalogue, and all kinds of other little facts, like # of pages, pub. date, etc.

What's the point of keeping us trapped on the "Order More From Member" page, so that we can't get to the detail page from that location? It seems inconsistent with the overall "philosophy" of the website, with regards to navigation--which is that it's easy to get around, that you can get to anywhere *from* anywhere. I've been very happy with that philosophy.

(Do the Swap high poobahs read this Forum? <waving hand>)

                                                                 --Fiona

You can go back to your account and add them later from the normal page.

Part of the reason for this "entrapment" is because of the number of people that have been looking on someone's shelf for more books for a deal (the 2nd or 3rd book, etc) but when they used to click the "more info" and it took you to the detail page, people would hit the "order this book" THERE which meant they were no longer on the shelf of the person offering the deal and they didn't order from that person. Just guessing, but sounds logical to me.

I think Sherry's right- there are constantly posts from people who accidentally ordered another book from the FIFO instead of the person's bookshelf because they were following links around checking out the books.  I suspect they changed this to make it a little harder for people to make that mistake.  Usually people didn't even realize they'd done it and then they were marking transactions as problems when they only got one book, etc.

Sara

The folks above are exactly right about the 'order more from member' button.

As to looking at people's bookshelves--well, I guess I'm not that curious, because I know where I get mine. LOL I do have very eclectic reading tastes but many of the books on my shelf are from Friends of the Library sales. I normally don't buy books I don't intend to read myself except from the library sales because they're cheap and because I can often pick up a lot of books from authors and genres I tend to steer clear of for my own reading--and these are often books that go quickly, like cozy mysteries and some paranormals. My bookshelf really doesn't reflect my own reading taste much at all. (Not that you can see it now anyway since we're moving this weekend and my account is on hold. LOL)

Cheryl

For getting the details... I often open another browser window and look it up "normally" to see if I might like it... then I can hop back over the "other members shelf" to order it.

I do the 2nd window thing as well.  Usually I look it up on Amazon. They frequently have more info then PBS anyway.