Booksharing
Booksharing (from English, in German roughly “joint use of books”), also known as book sharing , book exchange or book swapping in English , is the mutual provision of books of all kinds in largely non-commercial networks and online communities . Alternatively or in combination, swapping, lending / lending or giving / giving away is possible. Mutual use is organized virtually and registered via internet platforms, real and anonymous at certain locations or in combination. Book sharing is practiced worldwide, particularly in the United States and Europe .
background
The term booksharing first appeared in the USA around 2000 in the context of the school of thought of an alternative cooperative economy, share economy or collaborative consumption (economy or mutual consumption based on the principle of sustainability ). The term only slowly caught on in Germany, and the term bookcrossing or bookcrossing , a special form of booksharing with a more stable structure and organization as well as commercial interests, was also known. Bookelo, based in Munich, was one of the few social networks in Germany that identified itself as a booksharing provider. However, the service has since been discontinued.
From the self-made bookcase to the Internet
In other areas of life, the basic principle of booksharing corresponds to mutual participation in economic activities. Organizational forms such as car sharing (cars), the clothing circle (clothing) or couch surfing (travel) are known. Outside of the Internet, booksharing has long been around as a kind of disorganized grassroots movement for book lovers who want to trade books. Such movements emerged primarily in small, urban neighborhoods in the USA that were keen to read, for example in the New York literary district of Brooklyn, in Portland, Oregon, but also in intellectual quarters in Moscow and in Berlin on Prenzlauer Berg. There the books are either released haphazardly somewhere, for example on benches, or in self-made book cases, sometimes reminiscent of bird's nest boxes, for anonymous and free booksharing (see public bookcase ). It is desirable, but not mandatory, to deposit your own book to replace the one you have removed. In contrast to the tightly organized bookcrossing , which picks up on these social-neighborly urban traditions of book-wilding, this archetype of booksharing is usually rather unstructured. One organized form is the Little Free Library project, based in Wisconsin , which in 2012 had around 5000 registered users worldwide with an Internet platform. The basic idea was, in the form of small, self-made libraries in the form of doll's houses, to regularly supply residents from the neighborhood, especially in rural regions, with books and reading material in the booksharing system. This model has a number of imitators worldwide. Little Free Library now has supporters in Germany too. The project now has 75,000 locations in 88 countries worldwide. Booksharing is being redefined as an extended library term and applies e.g. T. as a successor to the city library . In rural regions in particular, booksharing platforms are a new hybrid of digital libraries and privately organized real lending libraries.
BookMooch as a pioneer for book exchange platforms
One of the founding fathers of booksharing as a digital platform for exchanging one's own books with those of other book lovers is the British John Buckman, who lives in the USA. The internet entrepreneur and studied philosopher developed the idea for the BookMooch platform in Berkeley, California , in the 1990s . BookMooch is now one of the largest and most professional internet platforms for booksharing based on the exchange principle and is also represented in Germany. Book collector Buckman was annoyed because many good used books were being sold on the Internet via cheap sellers. On the other hand, he found rare and no longer available books only overpriced in online second-hand bookshops. This is how the Internet entrepreneur came up with the idea of booksharing, in order to exchange books with like-minded people via a platform on the Internet according to personal interests. Booksharing takes place using a points system. Members can register with BookMooch worldwide free of charge and offer their own books. As soon as they have sent a book on its way, members receive points with which they can exchange books of their choice regardless of their real value on the book market. BookMooch also organizes charity projects and distributes books free of charge to children's hospitals and financially limited small city libraries and prisons. In addition to the much better known booksharing pioneer bookcrossing, BookMooch is one of the larger booksharing communities organized over the Internet with around 500,000 books on offer. The founder is now making profit through Amazon sales from the platform and voluntary funding by members, membership remains free. Every 20th book exchanged via BookMooch was previously purchased from Amazon. In 2013, a doctoral thesis on BookMooch was written at the University of Maryland.
Goodreads and other book exchange platforms
There are other platforms and networks for booksharing, mostly on an exchange basis, in the USA and Great Britain. Some like BookLikes are also active in Germany. The Goodreads platform, based in San Francisco, on the other hand, is a special form of booksharing, as the books used and posted by around 20 million users, including reviews, cannot be exchanged, given or lent by the community, but only recommended digitally. It was the platform of its kind with the largest number of members worldwide and advertised with purchases from the company Amazon , which took over the platform in 2013. A similarly structured provider for booksharing in connection with social networking is the Copia platform with real-time book discussions among community members with a focus on e-books. The Bookcrossing project had more than 1.4 million registered members around 15 years after its inception, most of them in the United States.
Bookelo as the first German booksharing platform
The Bookelo project, founded in Munich in 2012, is considered to be the only purely German platform for booksharing to date. The peculiarity that sets Bookelo apart from other platforms of this type is its organization as a kind of huge library . Exchange transactions are expressly not possible according to Bookelo's terms and conditions. Unlike Goodreads, the books are actually loaned out. If you want to become a member, you can register for free on the platform and offer books from your own collection to lend. Conversely, registered users can post loan searches for books. The participating community members agree on the individual modalities and the loan periods by email or Facebook . There is no rental fee for Bookelo, however, as with BookMooch, it is possible to order books via the Amazon platform . It is also possible to give away books, such as study books that are no longer needed. Bookelo members can also use the platform's software to manage their own library collections individually. In a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung in February 2013, Bookelo was referred to as “Library 3.0”. In the meantime the head office has been relocated to Puchheim and the activities “for book lovers all over the world” expanded.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ A fun new way of sharing books and it's growing a big following
- ^ A List of Book Exchange Websites
- ^ Book Swap Site Round-Up
- ↑ From mobile libraries to tiny libraries, how to get others to read the books you love.
- ↑ Why Book Sharing Sites are on the Rise ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ BookCrossing: How the Internet makes books run
- ↑ Start page of BookCrossing
- ↑ German homepage of Bookelo ( Memento of the original from September 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Books Found on Brooklyn Stoops, and Other Book Love
- ↑ Portland volunteers will share favorite titles during book-sharing event that spreads joy of reading
- ↑ Russia Magazine: Moscow Park Houses Book-Sharing Program In The Trees
- ↑ A book in the tree - access and refill please!
- ↑ Little Free Library home page
- ↑ Little Free Library - borrow books for free
- ↑ Little Free Library home page , accessed January 2, 2019
- ↑ German homepage of BookMooch
- ↑ Interview with BookMooch founder John Buckman ( Memento of the original from June 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Survey about BookMooch
- ^ Bookworms, save your pennies - try book sharing instead
- ↑ New Book Sharing Site Goes Live ( Memento of the original from June 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Drew Olanoff: Amazon Acquires Social Reading Site Goodreads, Which Gives The Company A Social Advantage Over Apple . SF Gate. Retrieved February 14, 2016.
- ↑ Home page of Copia ( Memento of the original from May 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Membership overview on bookcrossing.com , (as of August 2015)
- ↑ bookelo: The new, personal loan system for books on the web
- ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung of February 26, 2013 ( Memento of the original of September 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ https://www.i-share-economy.org/atlas/bookelo-booksharing , accessed on January 2, 2019
