BookCrossing

Reese sitting in the window at our big library.

I am using this post to spread the word about an awesome thing to do.

For you other bibliophiles- Let's make the world a library!

Visit http://bookcrossing.com/referral/KaiJinsbigsis

BookCrossing is a way of setting books free. When you have a book you love and want to share, or a book that's taking up space on your shelves that someone else might like, why not BookCross it? You register it with BookCrossing, print off labels (or buy them, if you like), or write in the cover the BookCrossing ID number (BCID) then give it to a friend or just leave it some where. See if it's found and someone goes online and records that they've found it. If you go to the above link and sign up from there, you'll be consider one of my "referrals". It really is great fun, I just wish more people would pick up freed books, instead of assuming they're lost. Check inside the cover, see if there's a BCID, and if there is- take it with you! You can also journal as an "Anonymous Finder" meaning you don't have to sign up. But why not?

Here's the back story on BookCrossing:

The idea came to Ron back in March of 2001, as he and his wife Kaori were admiring the PhotoTag.org site, which tracks disposable cameras loosed into the wild. He already knew about the popularity of WheresGeorge.com (which tracks U.S. currency by serial number), and that got him thinking: what other physical object might people enjoy tracking? A few minutes later, after a glance at his full bookshelf, the idea of tracking books occurred to him. After two hours of research on the internet, Ron realized, to his surprise, that nothing like BookCrossing had been done on any significant scale. And so they went to work. By 3 A.M. that night, they had decided on the name (zero hits for "bookcrossing" on Google), registered the domain, and Kaori had sketched the running book logo on a crossing sign. The rest was merely execution.

After getting the green light from his partners in the software company, Ron went to work programming the site from scratch the next day, and about four mostly sleepless weeks later, on April 17, 2001, BookCrossing.com was launched with a simple $500 press release, the last time money has been spent promoting the site. Members trickled in at the rate of 100 or so per month until March of 2002 when the Book magazine article was published. Since then, BookCrossing has been the focus of countless TV, radio, and newspaper features around the world, gets about 300 new members every day, has its own category in the human-edited Google Directory, and has been added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as a new word. The fact that it has captured the passion and imagination of around 628,449 people worldwide, so quickly, has been a welcome surprise for everyone involved.

There you have it! Go see what all the fun is about!