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Book swapping or book exchange is the practice of a swap of
Some book exchanges are informal - a shelf or box is provided where books can be left or picked up. The exchange relies on users leaving and taking books and is generally not supervised.
This is a frequent practice in What a novel idea - villagers transform redundant phone box into a LIBRARY
''Daily Express''
The Guardian and Observer Book Swap: how to take part
{{Books Book promotion
books
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physic ...
between one person and another. Practiced among book groups, friends and colleagues at work, it provides an inexpensive way for people to exchange books, find out about new books and obtain a new book to read without having to pay. Because swaps occur between individuals, without central distribution or warehousing, and without the copyright owner making a profit, the practice has been compared to peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...
(P2P) systems such as BitTorrent—except that hard-copy original analog objects are exchanged.
College book exchange programs
Many colleges and universities have developed online book exchange programs to help students save money ontextbook
A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...
s. Some colleges build their own systems and others use systems from third party service providers.
Informal book exchanges
Some book exchanges are informal - a shelf or box is provided where books can be left or picked up. The exchange relies on users leaving and taking books and is generally not supervised.
This is a frequent practice in youth hostel
A hostel is a form of low-cost, short-term shared sociable lodging where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed in a dormitory, with shared use of a lounge and sometimes a kitchen. Rooms can be mixed or single-sex and have private or shared ...
s where travellers can leave a book and take a different book with them. Some railway stations in Great Britain have informal book exchanges and one has also been set up in a phone box
A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box is a tiny structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience; usually the user steps into the booth and closes the booth ...
in Kington Magna
Kington Magna is a village and civil parish in the Blackmore Vale area of Dorset, England, about southwest of Gillingham.
History
The name Kington Magna means 'great King's Town'; it derives from ''cyne-'' (later ''cyning'') and ''tūn'', Ol ...
.''Daily Express''
Book swapping websites
*BookCrossing
BookCrossing (also BC, BCing or BXing) is defined as "the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise." The term is derived from bookcrossing.com, a free online book club which was founde ...
, an online book swapping site
* BookMooch
BookMooch is an international, online book exchange community founded by John Buckman in 2006. Membership, which by 2008 reached around 74,000 in over 90 countries, is open to anyone and is free. There is heavy community participation in its ...
, an online book swapping site
* ReadItSwapIt, an online book swapping site
* Little Free Library, trading posts that offer free books, housed in small containers, to members of the local community
* PaperBackSwap, an online book swapping club restricted to the USA
* Lenro, used to connect book readers locally (same college/neighborhood)
See also
*Collaborative consumption
Collaborative consumption is the set of those resource circulation systems in which consumers both "obtain" and "provide", temporarily or permanently, valuable resources or services through direct interaction with other consumers or through a m ...
, a trend describing similar swapping and lending organizations
*Public bookcase
A public bookcase (also known as a free library or street library or sidewalk library) is a cabinet which may be freely and anonymously used for the exchange and storage of books without the administrative rigor associated with formal libraries. ...
References
External links
The Guardian and Observer Book Swap: how to take part
{{Books Book promotion