Book club with a difference
by Paul Miller
You might have come across this before but I like the idea. BookCrossing is a community that acts as a sort of distributed library where once people have read books they "release" them for others to read. Quite often people do this by leaving them in a public place (I found one on a park bench in Tuscany). A sticker inside the book allows the finder to trace the book via the website and chat with other people who've read it.
Lydia Howland
A pre-economic social enterprise case study - fantastic! Expect to see similar things appearing in Hackney shortly....
Steve Bowbrick
Of course, this only works because of a *flaw* in the underlying distribution technology. I expect someone in the book publishers' underground lab is working furiously on a form of 'Analogue Rights Management' to embed in their dead tree products. Perhaps a capsule of red dye could ruin the book if you pass it on, or some kind of time-lock could snap shut until the book is given back to its legitimate owner...
neil neil
Variations on the theme already exist. My local community group have a day when everyone leaves things they don't want, but which are of some use, in front of their houses for a day. They also have a media day where people swap books in the same fashion.