"Help make the world a library and recycle at the same time."That's what BookCrossing is all about, and I have to say one of the best ever plans for some ordinary chum to come up with. Pretty genius turning an idea so unsophisticated into a process going on for nine years now, as of last month.
Like that Where's George? money-tracking by serial number thingy, only different with books. Stalking George was fun for awhile when I did it years ago, interesting but hardly recycling nor very edifying, really; also characteristically not free, and I've run out of Georges to track anyway.
BookCrossing is funner, and just maybe might get people picking up a book once every now and again. Folks don't seem to be book-readers so much anymore, which I find disappointing. Stupid, really, but that's my opinion and nobody asked for it. People do like free stuff, though, and finding a book laid in some random place labeled for free keeps books traveling.
Read and release for books: you read one and pass it along, left anywhere at all with a catchy sticker like "Take Me Home" for someone else to find. The first one to send a book on its course registers it online for getting assigned a unique ID number. That persons, and others afterward then, make journal entries about the book... where it was found, where it was left, and any comments about the book itself, whatever.
Some end up in impressive faraway places, too. I'm an idiot, I know. Don't know why that seems so groovy to me (yes, I said "groovy"); I'm not unfamiliar with airplanes nor that people use them to go places and even read there sometimes. Still. I've never had one travel so far, and I admit I would think that was cool. Guess there are not a lot of international travelers where I live.
This is awesome for so many reasons, not the least as I mentioned it gets people reading, hopefully. That it is absolutely free is a big perk, also finding a book you might not otherwise necessarily have read but do, that's kind of a neat thing. Unless the book sucks, of course. But then you can say so at BookCrossing's site and send it on its way, maybe to appeal to someone with worser or better taste than you, depending.
Anyway, if you love books, check out their website, you can start recycling your own books that you might be done with, setting them loose on others, and also check where books might have been left nearby wherever you are. I love to read, but I really love free, and the recycling part is pretty incredible when you think about it, beyond what you might first think.
Get this: of the number of book publishers in the U.S., more than 80,000 of them, only 250 signed the Book Industry Treatise on Responsible Paper Use, committing to improve their ecological footprint. I sure as hell don't want books to go away, for sure, but it seems that apparently more could be done toward making them a bit more earth-friendly than now. So there ya have it, like I said, BookCrossing is just plain awesome for so many reasons.
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