Spreading the words

By SHELLEY HOWELLS

If you find a book lying around on a park bench, in a cafe or gas-station restroom, it might be yours for the taking - the benevolent work of a book-loving netizen and member of the international online book-loving community, bookcrossing.com.

Started in the United States in 2001 by book-lover and software company chief executive Ron Hornbaker, the free site now has more than 92,000 members around the world whose mission is to give away books.

Members register books (more than 250,000 so far), each of which gets a unique ID number. The book is then labelled and numbered, and left ("released", in bookcrossing-speak) in some likely spot for pickup.

When the book is "caught", the finder can hit the web-site, look up the book's ID and discover where the book has been before, who released it, and what the book's various readers thought of it.

The finder can register the find, review it and leave it somewhere for the next bibliophile in the chain.

There are more than 620 New Zealand members. One of the most active is Christchurch's "Mothercat", who has more than 800 books registered and has released nearly 150 "in the wild".

The 51-year-old secretary, like many members we spoke to, just loves the whole idea of sharing books and the small excitement of possibly finding out where, and to whom, it goes.

"It's really neat when a book is found," she says. "But it can take a while.

"I released one on a park bench in Waimate, and five days later it was caught in a Video Ezy store. Another was released in a cafe in September last year and it was found two weeks ago in the women's public toilets in Lyttelton.

"It's fascinating!"

Bucklands Beach member "Jafa", a 45-year-old call-centre manager, says he likes the idea of sharing books around the world.

"It gives the book added value and meaning," he says. "They don't just get read once and left on the shelf for years - such a waste."

It has to be said that an awful lot of books just seem to disappear.

Mothercat has released 149 books and 52 have been found, but some members have had none picked up and give up.

"You have to be patient," says "Lizzylou", an Auckland teacher. "You need to have a fair swag of books out to get it working. Don't give up! People give up too easily."

It is surprisingly frustrating waiting for word of your books. For this story I ("shells") released two, and checked the email a bit too often hoping to hear news of them.

"Freeing" the books was oddly thrilling - lurking in a supermarket carpark trying to drop the book unobserved, I then lurked some more to see if I could see someone pick it up.

I also gave far too much thought to where to leave the second one. It ended up in the local library "returns" box, hopefully with a good chance of being picked up by a book-loving computer-literate person.

While they are waiting for news of their books, members can keep their interest up by using other features of the site, which is quite the social whirl.

There is busy international book-swapping action and very active discussion boards covering anything from chit-chat to newbies' talk, and even an "activists only" forum for evangelical bookcrossers.

The site is cleanly designed, fast, easy-to-use and packed with features. Searches can be done by book, release location, country, member name or location ... you name it.

Every kind of statistic is there, from Top Releasers List (a US member, "4libros", has released more than 1500 books, 407 of which have been caught), to the last three books caught.

Many members get together with the help of meetup.com, an online meetings arrangement system. They also let one another know where books are to be released, so that other bookcrossers can do some planned catching.

There are Official Crossing Zones - cafes, pubs, even B&B establishments - that have been set up to increase odds of book catches, and members let one another know where books are being dropped.

"Blue183", a 21-year-old Picton cafe assistant, says that she enjoys the social side of the site, as well as following the books around.

One of her "freed" books was caught by tourists outside a Picton chemist shop and ended up in England, where it has been re-released.

"It's a nice way of sharing books that I have enjoyed and really just sharing the wealth of reading," she says.

"I check the book wish list forum regularly and I have traded some good books with other members as far away as Italy. It is also interesting to read reviews by other members.

"Since joining bookcrossing, I have started reading more than ever."

She, and the other members we spoke to, may be just as likely to have their noses pressed to a computer screen as in a good book, but that computer-time is feeding their passion for reading. Free your books!