I happened upon an interesting site today called BookCrossing. It's essentially a free, online book club. People sign up and can post reviews and recommendations of books. But the key difference (from what I can tell), is the "freeing" of the books after you read them. Members are encouraged to not only give their books away to friends and family, but to strangers as well. Leave books on park benches, in coffee shops, at the drug store, etc. The next person to find the book can enter it into the system and you can watch how the book travels.
This is a really interesting idea and it appeals to me on many levels. It reminds me a bit of Where's George - a site where you can track where your money goes after you spend it. I love the idea of spreading books around and encouraging more folks to read. Currently in Pleasanton there are 55 books in the wild. How wonderful that a little town like this has such support!
But I don't know if I can do it. I love my books. Really, I do. I get attached to them. I could say it's the librarian in me, but I think it's actually the collector. Libraries are all about sharing books and information. Collectors want to keep them for themselves (my precious books).
In any case, this does do one thing - it makes me want to read more. I'm hoping that once I'm moved in, and things have settled down, and I have created my little "reading nook" in the spare room, I will have more time to read. Or at least feel that I have the freedom to carve out time. I hope so. Because I miss reading. I really do.
I used to free my books all the time when I was a teenager. As I grew older I started to think about that philosophy and decided that donating them to a library made more sense. Now I have conflicting feelings; I'm from Brazil and we do not have a good library culture - in general people are not library-goers and Brazilians are not big on books. So what's the best place to share the knowledge in books?
I decided to join the bookcrossing community late last year to see if it might help with my dilemma. I stopped leaving books just anywhere though and prefer to take them to the monthly group meetings (you can find your local group at meetup.com), where I am sure someone will take them home and make good use of them. And keep sharing them.
At the same time I have to deal with my feeling of ownership over the books; I'm not really hooked on other material goods, but my books really come first to me. I'm trying to come to terms with this dilemma by telling myself that the books that get "freed" will make more room in my shelves for new books. Something I am surely in need of.
I know you have a Library & Info Sciences background - I wonder how much that affects your relationship to your books and your feelings towards BookCrossing. Thoughts?
P.S: It was very nice meeting you at the IA Summit!