Friday, January 30, 2009

BookCrossing


Do you know about BookCrossing? It's a great site where you can register books by their ISBN number then leave them in a public place for someone to pick up and then you can track them on the Internet to see where they go.

One might argue that I'm stretching the definition of "good deed" by including this in my collection of posts about budget philanthropy and good deeds. However, I personally feel that anything that makes someone smile, or think or pause to consider the wonders of the world is a Good Deed! And this is what BookCrossers do. If you love to read and love to encourage others to read you'll love this site. It's appealing to the scavengers in us and will brighten someone's day!

I hope you'll try it out. Get some books you don't want, go register them and have fun leaving books for people to have or even just had them out to random strangers. I bet someone will smile and have a great story to tell about you later.

4 comments:

Tantra Flower said...

What a neat idea! I usually donate my old books to the library, but it is always nice to have other options.

Daanish said...

wow,this idea makes make curious:)

Anonymous said...

What a great idea, I will check it out!

Jena said...

I do know about Bookcrossing; I think it's a fun way to relieve my shelves. (And even though it's most definitely not a matchmaking site, I'm not the only one who's found her spouse at Bookcrossing.) It's always a nice surprise to find a new journal entry waiting for you--sometimes letting you know that the book you released in the park on your block in Ohio is now somewhere in Australia or England.

re: what tantra flower said: a lot of Bookcrossers register their books and then donate them to Goodwill or library sales. Hardcore Bookcrossers really only frown on registering books with Bookcrossing and then either selling them at garagle sales or online.