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August 23, 2005
Sharing your library
On the face of it, Britain's new online book-sharing collective, My Book Your Book, looks like a great idea.
For an annual fee of £8.95 (currently being waived) members pledge to share 10 of their own paperbacks, in return for access to the titles owned by the rest of the community.
After choosing a book, each reader sends a stamped addressed envelope to whoever owns the volume. The owner posts the book and the reader is allowed to keep it for up to five weeks before passing it on to the next person in the chain.
As librarians pointed out to The Guardian, however, the same service is available for free at public libraries, without the postage. And again, unlike libraries, it doesn't offer a royalty payment for authors.
Posted by cw at August 23, 2005 11:45 PM