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Is There A Book Sharing Network?
dmorin asks: "Having recently been laid off I find myself with more time to read and less money to spend on books. I stare at the shelves full of books I already have, most of which I won't read again, and wonder if there's an easy way to move them around the universe a bit. Get some new ones. I've thought about eBay, but I'm not sure that time and effort (cataloging, pricing, describing, shipping, etc..) would ever balance out. What I'm looking for is a site where people basically say 'Hey, here are some books I have, if you want one, I'll send it to you.' Note I didn't say 'sell'. This would be more about keeping the books in circulation for the sake of getting fresh stuff to read, not for making a profit. You paid for the book, you got something out of it, now let somebody else share it. And, of course, you're supposed to be asking other people for their books, too. Anything like that out there? Would anybody use such a thing?"
"This is not Book Crossing. Although I find that an awesome idea, I'm looking for more of a steady stream of books at my disposal, not just being lucky enough to stumble upon one under a picnic table.
I suppose such a service would have to have some sort of karma/moderation system to make sure that people were playing nice and not just hoarding others' books (since, unlike bookcrossing, the person donating would have to cough up some money for shipping it)."
That's a good booksharing network. Donate.
Why not donate the books you don't want anymore to your local public library? Then others can read them for free and if other people donate their unused books you can read them for free. Sounds like it fills most of the requirements you listed, though perhaps over not quite as large a geographic area. And as a bonus, most libraries will even put a nifty "Donated by" tag in the front of the book!
You need to make people pay for what they get, even if it is a big markdown over new books.
If not you'll run into the same tradgedy of the commons that ruins all systems with insufficinet accountability. Every user will have more incentive to take from the system than to give, and since these books are a finite resource, they will be quickly snapped up (especially the ones worth reading).
A karma like system might lessen this problem, but it would have to be pretty strict to keep the system flowing with finite, and probably scarce resources.
A system facilitating free market exchanges of used books is about the closest to this concept that I can forsee working in real life. You might try Amazon's marketplace for that kind of thing. They are better organized for books than ebay, however their shipping surcharges are somewhat exorbitant if you're just ordering little paperback books (shipping sometimes costs 4+ times a cheap used book's price).
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
Another place to look, if you've got an RV campground nearby, some of those have really good trading libraries. Lots of Danielle Steele and similar muck, but good books too. Full-time RV'ers are...interesting...people. You might be surprised at what you find in those swap shelves.
Likewise, lots of used bookstores will give pretty decent credit for trade-ins (you usually get less cash than credit for trade when you sell). You'll diminish your collection slowly that way, but used bookstores are wonderous places to spend a lot of time if you've got a good one. If you spent money on more books rather than shipping costs you'd be able to keep that trading up indefinitely.
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"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." -Emerson
Cheap: .e-books. Newsgroups (again, if you're not averse to that sort of thing) ... Also... there are 3 coffee houses/cafes within about a 1/2 hour drive of me that have book swap shelves... a sort of informal leave 1, take 1 (or 2 or 3) sort of deal
1. Library book sales (they sell old/slightly damaged/redundant copies, two of them by me have permanent rooms full of books set up and sell them as a fund raiser)
2. Thrift shops
3. Flea markets/swap meets
4. Garage/yard/estate sales
5. Slightly illegal: Your local big box super stores dumpsters have TONS of "stripped" (no cover) books and magazines in them
Free:
1. Project Gutenberg
2. Many University web/ftp sites
3. Some warez web/ftp sites (if you're not averse to that sort of thing)
4.
5. Baen books
6. Memoware
7. Several more e-book sources that I cannot think of right now
[what?]
Newsgroups are always the source for things of this nature
Other people are the most valuable resources for OCR books (and PDF scans.) if you do not have a scanner of your own that is.
Alt.binaries (will now be represented with a.b. for non Usenet fanatics) a.b.ebooks, a.b.e-book, a.b.e-book.flood, a.b.e-books, a.b.e-books.flood, a.b.e-books.technical.
If there is an author you would like posted, you post a request for them.
If you don't want to be a usenet freak with a client and all, you can just sign up for www.easynews.com. good enough for me.
Unfortunately, they're not accepting new memberships at the moment, but they promise to continue soon.
vi ~/.emacs
Often times, truck stops and campgrounds will have book swapping racks. It's not quite as high tech as you have in mind, but the next time you're out driving around, drop off a few and pick up a few.
Libraries are great! But: Your library may not be able to use your books, and may end up selling them off cheaply at a booksale. It's kind to give them a shot. I believe in libraries, but I know they actually have to pare down their collections, so don't give them a pile of crap.
Depending on the books you've collected, you may be able to sell them to used bookstores. They'll usually offer you more in credit than they do cash, so you can make trades more economically.
I've gone & sold 2/3 of a large pile to a used bookstore, then taken the last 1/3 to another used bookstore, & sold 2/3 of that. Iterate as desired. The last few I either kept or gave to Goodwill. I've given lots of books to friends, too.
I do a few things to economize on books. I am a real addict though. I even met my wife working in a bookstore.
Buy books at thrift stores, rummage sales, or library book sales. There are lots of wonderful books being sold by the peck sack.
Used bookstores can have bargains, but can also be overpriced. Very few computer books are of much use either to buy or sell, in a used bookstore. This akin to a friend of a friend's experience trying to sell a desktop computer to a pawn shop.
I try not to buy books I won't want to keep in the long run. Lots of books are very available through Project Gutenberg & the public libraries. You can read most classics free.
I also have a readers card at the nearest University library. It's not free, but it makes a lot of stuff available to me that I couldn't see otherwise. I think it's a better bargain at $75/year than O'Reilly's Safari.
Safari's a nice idea. Especially for geek books with a limited lifespan. Renting books troubles me a little though. If I want it enough to pay to rent it, as a professional, I'll likely want to own it anyway.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
While it isn't on the global scale you seem to seek, I know of two coffee shops with "Take a Book, Leave a Book" libraries. They work out quite nicely. I see quite a few of the books I leave come and go more than once, so people definitely come back for more. Perhaps you could persuade a local technology store into allocating floor space to something like this for technology books.
- Someone sets up a web site where people can register themselves and their books
- Advertise the site in a neighborhood or office (should be easy to go around and trade books w/ people)
- (Optional) everyone puts up $20 that a trusted party (the web site owner?) holds. This is to make sure you don't get ripped off by strangers signing up and taking books. One may also want to set up a reputation for happily loaning so many books to others and also safely returning books. Basically establist Karma
- People search for the books they want, find one, and set up a time with the owner to pick it up
- The book is marked as 'out' so others on the site don't ask for it. Maybe there is a waiting list. The book owner can also use this to see who has her books and how long they've been out
- The borrower returns the book when done. The owner marks it as availible. All is good.
Alright, a cookie to the first implementation!A speech...
You might check out Swappingtons. It works with swap points, and it's for books and other media. It's brand new, so you might have to dig for something you want.
I'm guessing you probably would be most interested in geek type books so what about getting on the mailing list of your local Linux User Group and offering your already read books and asking if others have any they wouldn't mind sharing? Then just meet up and swap at the next meeting. No shipping costs involved, you make some new friends, and you might even broaden your job search network enough to get some inside leads.
a simple word substitution in the article may make this a more popular thread
I think you're basically describing Trodo, a one-for-one media swapping service.
There's problems with it's business model (Ex: ANY 'Book' is one 'credit' - So a moth-eaten copy of 'The Two Towers' is worth as much as an obscure out-of-print short story collection.), but my limited experience so far (one taken, one given.) has been good.
If you want to sign up, a link is here.(No cost to you, small benefit to me.)