bookcrossing.com and meetup.com

~terry Thu, Jan 16, 2003 (09:51) seed

http://www.bookcrossing.com is an online community dedicated to the sharing of books. You register, register your books, then leave them in public places (release) for others to find (catch). I heard of this from "Choco Nancy". Bookcrossing has partnered with http://www.meetup.com to facilitate face to face meetings of bookcrossing members all around the world. I haven't been to one of their events yet or even been to the website, but it sounds worthwhile. I was at the greatest book event I've ever been to last night which was Karen Kreps Intimacies group at Book People and I'll have a lot more to say about it later. It was about a new way for couples, workers and communities to communicate. It's a whole new model for communication that Meri (the presenter) has spent 12 years refining and it was a packed house for her talk. I now have these two books I want to read and to share thoughts of with others who are reading them at the same time. I wonder if I can start something like that on my own vc which is filled with book loving people or if I should go the bookcrossing and do that. 9 new of

~autumn Mon, Jan 20, 2003 (15:47) #1

What a fascinating concept, Terry! I'm going to surf over there and check it out asap.

~admin Tue, Jan 21, 2003 (11:17) #2

Let us know your findings, ok?

~autumn Tue, Jan 21, 2003 (16:16) #3

OK, I checked it out but--here's the horrifying part--you have to actually purchase books to make this work. After you read it, you post your critique to the website, put a special sticker on it that you print off the website, and leave it somewhere. Someone else picks it up, reads it, posts their thoughts, and leaves it somewhere else. It didn't appear to be a thing where you can post your comments about the same book if you've just checked it out of the library like sane people do. :-)

~admin Wed, Jan 22, 2003 (07:24) #4

We'll have to do it ourselves then, with no purchase requirement. Although we do have an Amazon program here and we love it when people buy books through us b ecause it pays the bills. It helps to pay for our server and our colocation fees! What would we need to do, autumn?

~autumn Wed, Jan 22, 2003 (20:34) #5

Well, obviously, instead of passing around the same book, we could do it the old-fashioned way and all choose a book to read and discuss. Or, we could each choose a different book and post our thoughts in an individual topic diary fashion. Then we would read the books the others read and add our thoughts to their topics. Does that make sense?

~terry Thu, Jan 23, 2003 (10:08) #6

Yeah, it does. Fining a book we all like is the trick.

~terry Thu, Jan 23, 2003 (13:25) #7

meant to say 'finding'

~autumn Thu, Jan 23, 2003 (18:20) #8

Well, that's always the eternal dilemma.

~wer Fri, Apr 11, 2003 (08:19) #9

Make the Whole World a Library (sorry for the crosspost...*sigh*) Celebrate the Anniversary of bookcrossing.com On April 17th, 2003, join Austin area residents at Quack's on 411 E. 43rd St to celebrate the anniversary of web site bookcrossing.com. The concept behind the site is that you take a book you've read, register it at the site, put an identifying label on the book, then leave the book in a public place for someone else to find and enjoy. To celebrate this anniversary, Austin BookCrossers will have many books available for you to take home with you and enjoy...for FREE! We only ask that if you take a book, you visit the bookcrossing.com web site to let us know what you think of the book and whether you've released it into the wild again. We love to see the journey of each little message in a bottle! If you have a book you'd like to release at the event, bring it by and we'll tag it with a label. Better yet, sign up at http://bookcrossing.com/referral/AustinBXers before you come and tag it yourself so you can track its journey all over the world! When: Thursday, April 17th, 10:30 am - 8:30 pm Where: Quack's, 411 E. 43rd St What: Free books! Why: Because shared books are happy books For more information about this event, visit http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/AustinBXers or contact Nicole at nicole@nicole2112.com. Sincerely, Nicole2112 (http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Nicole2112)