Obsession of the Week
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It's the circle of libris |
Book Mooch
Finally a library where you can keep the books!
Imagine a perfect world where the books you wanted arrived at your house whenever you wanted them, free of charge. Now imagine a Netflix-esque queing system, weighted by availability. Sprinkle liberally with a neohippy live and let live philosophy and you get book mooch. It's like social networking (kinda). It's like a used books store (sorta). It's a great idea.
Here's the skinny: users sign up and list what books they own and are willing to give away. For each book listed, a used receives 1/10 of a point. When someone requests a book on your inventory, a point is transferred from them to you. Once requested, it is the owner's responsibility to foot the shipping costs, which are typically under $3 per book. Wrapping books in plastic, then paper groccery bags and sending them through media mail is a cheap and easy way to go, and gets rid of all of those bags that are cluttering your kitchen! Books sent to other countries earn the sender 3 points, for the extra shipping cost. User have the option of the "smooch," which arbitrarily transfers the smoochee a point. As you accrue points, you can request books from others by searching the site, or Amazon.com. It's a wonderfully simple system.
Key feature: the wishlist. Books that aren't currently available for mooching end up here, and an email is sent to you when someone adds it to their inventory of available books. Books that you're interested in but aren't ready to mooch can be added to your "save for later" list. You can keep track of people you know, and browse their inventories and wishlists. It's a great time!
Since books are the most annoying thing to move when you're changing residence, I highly suggest this website to anyone who might be relocating in the near future. You'll be pounds lighter, and you can always mooch them back some day. It's a whole new perspective on the necessity of your material life!