I am always a bit late for the fad of the moment, and with bookcrossing it seems to be the same. As I discovered today the term has already got an entry in the Oxford Concise Dictionary:
bookcrossing
n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.
There is a relating Wikipedia article , as well, which points out an analogy with the ornithological practice of ringing birds to track their movements and informs about formalized rituals and standards like “Official BookCrossing Zones, which are sometimes called OBCZs or OBZs and are located in places like Starbucks coffee shops, restaurants or other places where accessible to the public. These OBCZs refer to bookshelves placed there so that BookCrossers could catch or release books”. “Contact between BookCrossing members (called BookCrossers) is facilitated through forums on the website, email lists (many countries have their own email lists as well as a main international list), an unofficial “wish-list” system, local meetups and national conventions.”
Lorcan Dempsey quotes from the Guardian:
“The concept is finders-keepers meets interactive virtual lending library. The rules are simple. First take a book down from your shelf. It should be one you love. (Ideally, if you ruled the world you would make reading of this book compulsory.) Log onto bookcrossing.com and register. Print out a label and a number for your book. Release it into the wild. The person who finds the book will see the invitation to the website where they can log their find, eventually write a review and then rerelease the book themselves. In theory, as the book travels around, it should build up an online profile of reviews.”
Elizabeth Lane Lawley points out bookcrossing for all bookworms´ dilemma - space for their books: “It’s been a great catalyst for cleaning up and cleaning out some of our possessions, and a lot of those are books that are long overdue for new homes and new readers.”
Joe Kissel gives additional details : “I’m going to “set them free.” That’s the lingo used by members of a rapidly growing movement known as bookcrossing, which aims to turn the entire world into a library. “Bookcrossing is the brainchild of Ron Hornbaker, an entrepreneur and book lover who was running a software company when the idea came to him in 2001. After learning about Web sites that enable people to track the movements of other objects around the world, including banknotes and disposable cameras, Hornbaker imagined using a similar process for books. After less than a month of work, he and his wife turned the idea into a unique Web site called BookCrossing.com.”
As for those comparing bookcrossing with book-napstering: “Some authors and publishers have expressed concern that if the bookcrossing phenomenon becomes too large, it could damage sales. But so far, just the opposite appears to be true. Participants frequently buy extra copies of their favorite books just to give away, and people who get excited about a book by reading glowing journal entries are much more likely to purchase it themselves than to go looking for it in the wild.”
My two cents on bookcrossing: The idea is appealing. Sending out your books as a new way of “weaving the web”, like showing my photos on Flickr or posting my ideas in a blog, as a way to do something good - provide free books to others and not just random books, but some that I like and found worth reading -, as a way of Sharing with others with the additional bonus of being able to watch my books´ (hopefully) interesting fates and destinies, even as a way to make space for new books that I might (and will most certainly) buy and own, definitely has something to it. I like the idea!
But as for actually giving away my beloved books? No way, sorry. I am going to buy new book shelves, I am too much of a collector and like living in rooms stuffed with books far too much. Having written this I gather that aquiring more and more stuff might be one of the bugs-not-features of my style of living after all.
OK, I will reconsider bookcrossing, I promise. And keep an eye on the interesting related websites.
In the meantime I have already found out that there acually are German support pages and lists of meetings and OBCZs in Germany. Shucks, I had hoped this was an Anglo-Saxon fad only…
bookcrossing, release+book, books+in+the+wild, finders+keepers
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Possibly (!) Related Posts from the Past:
Books I ordered todayPersonalised Photo BooksBook of the Week - ProjectWanting so much…All´s well - The Deathly Hallows
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:
BBC
Wikipedia
- I haven´t yet found something on flagging down saucers in the manual, though - I became convinced of definitely needing to have such a thing by this Makezine article on geotagging your digital photos (another tutorial on a more automated approach to geotagging the exif-files of your snaps is here) . Flickr has a special “Geotagged” group and pool . 
