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Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots

bookcorners.org

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Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots

#21

Post by WillAdams »

rusk wrote: post #5
tomodachi94 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could digitize them if you think you (or your family/friends/etc.) would read them: https://www.diybookscanner.org/ (If any are public domain, consider scanning them and uploading to archive.org!)

That’s no good to me. It’s the physical volumes I need to get rid of. I couldn’t give a fiddlers about what’s in them

Yeah, I wish that libraries would have the funding for a "last copy" system where at least one copy of every book which was ever in their system was kept in storage --- yes, there are systems such as the Library of Congress to serve as book repositories, but they don't loan, and driving there for research is a pain.

Donate them to Better World Books or some similar group?

Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots

#22

Post by pietervdvn »

konsalexee wrote: post #9

Nice idea i even found on my city in Sweden! How to you get the data for those exchange spots? Maybe it was in the website and i missed it

I think they have their own database. TBH, we'd better all contribute to OpenStreetMap, it's why I made https://mapcomplete.org/bookcases.html?

Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots

#23

Post by gazook89 »

rusk wrote: post #3

I have lots of old books that aren’t very good. That I can’t give away. What do I do with them? I have this strange taboo feeling about destroying books, even bad ones!

Just toss them. Make a real assessment on their quality or worth and if you think it’s very unlikely someone in your immediate community would not only pick it up but actually read it, toss them.

Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots

#24

Post by NDlurker »

smokel wrote: post #12

Most of the books in these community libraries are really crappy. I would assume that people: a. Toss out books at home they don't like and bring them to these libraries b. Take interesting books from the libraries, and leave the bad ones Any ideas on how to improve that?

My mom was cleaning the house and gave me a tote filled with books I had left at home when I moved out. So I drove around and stuffed all my Goosebumps and Animorphs books into all the little libraries I knew about in my area. I hope some kids had as much fun reading them as I did when I was their age.

Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots

#25

Post by bombcar »

smokel wrote: post #15
bombcar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of books are crap. The little libraries have a cross-section of crap (verified by comparing what you find there with Goodwill / other sources). If you want a good one you'd have to set up your own and aggressively curate it. I feel something like 90% of all books purchased each year are bibles, cookbooks, or self-help.

> If you want a good one you'd have to set up your own and aggressively curate it Expect a community library with only books on homotopy type theory and quantum computing soon!

Honestly, if each little library was curated by the owner, it would be amazing - even if I don't care about grannie's selection of knitting guides from the 1950s or old man bob's collection of microwave cookbooks from the 60s, it would be so much fun to SEE them as opposed to each one being a near-mirror of every other one.

Darn it, now I almost want to start a competitor to the LFLs hehe.

Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots

#26

Post by dewey »

graemep wrote: post #19
smokel wrote: post #12

Most of the books in these community libraries are really crappy. I would assume that people: a. Toss out books at home they don't like and bring them to these libraries b. Take interesting books from the libraries, and leave the bad ones Any ideas on how to improve that?

If people own a book they probably liked it at some point.

Or they are passing on an unwanted gift.

Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots

#27

Post by throwup238 »

WillAdams wrote: post #17
smokel wrote: post #12

Most of the books in these community libraries are really crappy. I would assume that people: a. Toss out books at home they don't like and bring them to these libraries b. Take interesting books from the libraries, and leave the bad ones Any ideas on how to improve that?

My sister runs a "Little Library" and her solution has been to throw money at it --- uninteresting/objectionable books are removed and books which she wants to distribute (often copies of books we remember fondly from childhood) are placed there.

In my town we banded together with the town library to cycle through books that are otherwise going to be thrown out into the little libraries we have. Someone (me) just had to build a backyard shed big enough to store the “stock” to free up the big library and the librarians are more than happy to chip in a few hours a month to manage it (we have a vibe coded app that integrates with their system to make it easy). Since the library prefilters their collection for us, the vast majority of the books were good to great, they just hadn’t been checked out in a long time.

It ended up saving a whole collection of rare books about obscure SoCal history that were going to be thrown away, because someone got interested in a book from a little library and started checking them out for the first time in years.

Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots

#28

Post by mejutoco »

smallnix wrote: post #13
smokel wrote: post #12

Most of the books in these community libraries are really crappy. I would assume that people: a. Toss out books at home they don't like and bring them to these libraries b. Take interesting books from the libraries, and leave the bad ones Any ideas on how to improve that?

Free membership which accumulates points. These can be spent on books. Books are priced in points according to a metric (TBD). Bad books are 0 points. You can also get points by bringing in good books. (It's like uh some kind of currency based barter dude ;) )

It sounds like physical bittorrent

Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots

#29

Post by mejutoco »

rusk wrote: post #3

I have lots of old books that aren’t very good. That I can’t give away. What do I do with them? I have this strange taboo feeling about destroying books, even bad ones!

I believe libraries should take all books. Then they can turn them into confetti if they want. In practice, of course, they are not interested at all. If they did they might find some interesting gems when someone passes away or similar to make up for it.

Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots

#30

Post by WillAdams »

throwup238 wrote: post #27
WillAdams wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sister runs a "Little Library" and her solution has been to throw money at it --- uninteresting/objectionable books are removed and books which she wants to distribute (often copies of books we remember fondly from childhood) are placed there.

In my town we banded together with the town library to cycle through books that are otherwise going to be thrown out into the little libraries we have. Someone (me) just had to build a backyard shed big enough to store the “stock” to free up the big library and the librarians are more than happy to chip in a few hours a month to manage it (we have a vibe coded app that integrates with their system to make it easy). S…

As much as I hate it, when discarding books, libraries really should have a policy of checking values/quantity of used copies for sale, and anything past a certain threshold or which they cannot find a copy of for sale, should be put up for sale.
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