Do you have duplicates and unwanted books taking up precious space in your library? Do you receive donations you can’t use? Trade those undesirables for books you want using an online book-swap program. Internet book-swapping sites are becoming more and more popular thanks to a growing number of environment conscious readers and readers with shrinking personal budgets.
How does it work? A member account is first set up by each user. Members use the website to list the books they no longer want and request books they do want. Members receive notice when one of their unwanted books has been requested and mail the book to the requester.
Books you request are sent to you for free. Senders pay the postage, which for an average book is just over $2 (Media Mail postal rate). There is no charge to set up a member account.
Usually a point system is maintained to track the number of books a member is eligible to request. Book lists can be browsed by subject, or members can use the site’s search feature to look for a book by title, author or ISBN. Users can also create a wish list and get email notifications when a desired title is newly listed by another member. On some sites, users can even request that wish list books be automatically sent when available.
John Clark, a successful book-swapping librarian in Hartland, Maine, was recently in featured in the Bangor Daily (Maine) News . . . Read John’s story >>>
Book Mooch, Paper Back Swap, and Swap Tree are three popular swap sites with larger inventories of religious titles that church librarians may find appealing.
Check out book-swapping sites today and start turning your undesirable books into desirables!
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