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The Giving Library and letting things circulate by themselves

August 1, 2004 By Uncategorized

Gerry made a comment a couple of days ago about sharing books:

If we put our personal libraries into a database that we could share with our network of friends, they could sign up to get the physical book sent. Maybe I should write a blog entry with more detail, but the database would be more like a blogging network where we could annotate and post reviews or which books most profoundly affected us. It would also track where the books travel and get them back to their origin at the end of a sojourn.

I like the idea, especially the boomerang function, where the books come back. But I have to say, I’m far more taken by the unconditional anarchy of BookCrossing! It makes it hard to coordinate something, but Bookcrossing has the gift theory thing DOWN in practice!

And here’s another example, courtesy of my friend Terry McGee in Australia who is an Irish flute maker. He has what he calls a Roving Ambassador flute, which travels the world from one potential customer to the next. It’s a brilliant marketing tool (because he makes great flutes and you have to actually play them to believe how good they are) but beyond that, it shows remarkable trust in both the goodwill of complete strangers and the power of self-organization. Is this a small peek into the merged worlds of commodity and gift?