BookCrossing.com
Posted by Neil Crosby on August 11, 2005 03:35 PM
After hearing yesterday’s interview with Ron Hornbaker, the creator of BookCrossing.com, on BBC Radio 2 I decided that it was about time to release some of my own books into the wild. I first heard about BookCrossing over a year ago from a friend, but for whatever reason I had never got around to releasing any books until now. Maybe I was just lazy, maybe I felt that the people in the town where I was living at the time weren’t going to be the best people to release books to, but for whatever reason I never actually released any.
Right now, however, I’ve having to try and get rid of a lot of my surplus “junk” anyway, so releasing a few books that I have enjoyed so that other people could enjoy them too was an appealing proposition. So, this afternoon, I selected five books which I’ve enjoyed over the last few years and registered them on BookCrossing.com. The initial username registration process was nice and painless, as was the registering of the books. For each one, all you need do is type in its ISBN number and the system will (hopefully) fill in all the relevant information about that book. You then simply write the BCID that you’re given on the inside cover of the book along with information about where people should go to report that the book has been picked up. For simplicity’s sake, I printed out some stickers instead of writing everything out by hand.
Tomorrow I’ll be taking these books into Leicester, where I’ll be leaving them (in transparent plastic bags in case it rains) for people to pick up and read for themselves. I’ve also left information for the people who pick the books up so that they can come and say hello on this entry. So, if you’re a person who’s come here because you picked up one of my books, welcome! Everyone else, why not go and register at BookCrossing.com now and let some fresh people read those books that are gathering dust on your shelf? Hopefully we can end up brightening a few people’s days with a fresh new book to read!
If you enjoyed reading this and would like other people to read it as well, please add it to del.icio.us, digg or furl.
If you really enjoyed what you just read, why not buy yourself something from Amazon? You get something nice for yourself, and I get a little bit of commission to pay for servers and the like. Everyone's a winner!
Comments
by Becca on August 11, 2005 05:24 PM
What an excellent idea! I was thinking about that the other day oddly enough and was desperatly trying to remember what the scheme was called. Thank you honey for your brilliance! I have loads of books I no longer read and Aber will be the perfect place to ‘drop’ them because of the smallness of the town and how many students there are. I’m going to leave an unlocked LJ entry about it I think so people can reply etc!
by Neil Crosby![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.workingwith.me.uk/nav-commenters.gif)
on August 12, 2005 10:43 PM
Well, I’ve released them all now - lets hope some people enjoy reading them! It was actually quite hard finding places to put them down where I wouldn’t be seen doing it, but I managed in the end. Good thing I’d put them in baggies too - it started to rain quite badly as I was doing it!