I was thinking about the hundreds of books I have sitting around my home and about how much of a waste it is, but feel bad parting with them. So, I then thought that perhaps I could organize a community book swap. Most likely it'd be organized on Facebook, but I am not sure of how exactly to implement it.
It would be open to people in my village (about 30K people). I was thinking that I could use the FILES section in a FB group to designate genres, and then people could list their titles alphabetically, and put their name after the title to show who to contact to request the book. Similar to Freecycle, the books would be left outside for pick up (on a porch, or whatever), sheltered from rain/snow.
Does this sound like it would be a good thing? I never make it to the adult section of the library because it is tough to take the kids in with me.
Why not start a little free library? There are several out in my direction. I've never used on, but it's a great idea. Here's an article from the Chicago Tribune http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-01-09/news/ct-tl-.... You can find a lot of information on them on the internet.
I would start smaller with the kids school. Our parent council organizes one each year as a fundraiser. All the families are encouraged to donate, then they hold a sale in the school gym. The prices are low, but it is still a great fundraiser. They usually do it in conjunction with reading month.
Check with your local libary - they might already have something like this setup. Our libary has a shelf near the entrance stacked with donated books. You are free to take one for each book you bring in to put on the shelf. Our library also does a huge sale each year to get rid of excess books. People bring in books they no longer want and everything is sold for donations (which is free to those who truely cannot afford.) All donations support the library.
If the libary has nothing like this, maybe you could work with the PTA to host a book exchange bazaar. End of the year carnival would be a great time to host this. A table could be set up for each genre or age group of books, and as people bring books in they get a voucher for each book entitling them to a free book in exchange. (or maybe 1 book for each 2 they bring so extras can be sold?) Wouldn't take a lot of setup and one adult could probably oversee the whole thing.
I would include puzzles in this swap. I have a group of moms that we used to pass puzzles around when the kids were younger. Didn't matter if you got any in return, the idea was to keep passing them onto another person when you were finished. If pieces were missing either make a note on the box or toss it when it got too bad.
Sounds like a good idea!
I've thought if doing this with soccer/baseball shoes--bring a pair, take a pair.
Personally, I would set this up at a physical location.
Have people being their books, place in the appropriate designated area by genre, get "X" amount of tickets based on # of books they've contributed.
Maybe have drop off from 9-11 and "shop" from 12-2?
Our local library has a twice per year books sale as a fundraiser. They make it really easy to drop off used books...
You can always donate what's leftover.
I know of two successful book swaps. One is in our office's pantry/ coffee station. You can drop off unwanted books, and take your pick of any there. No pressure to do an even exchange. The other is at a ticket office at a local commuter rail station. Same policy applies.
If your goal is to get new books and off load your old ones. If you can get to a post office, you might try looking at Amazon and other vendors for so called "trade ins." you can "sell" your used books back for credit and buy new ones.
If your goal is to simply off load your old books to good homes, you can lay them out on your front lawn with a sign which reads "free to a good home." FB alert that you are doing this, do it for a week until they are mostly gone and then put the unwanted ones out with recycling.
Good luck to you and yours,
F. B.
It sounds lovely. You might want to see if Nextdoor.com will work for you.
We have a FB yardsale. The person who set it up is a huge networker and has contact information for a lot of people. I think there are about 650 on the list.
What a wonderful idea! I love it!
I saw a show awhile back that talked about a community that did something similar. In that town, each family that wanted to participate built and decorated a simple structure, something akin to a birdhouse, and put it on their porch. They then selected whatever books they wanted to "lend", put a name plate in the book and left it in structure on porch. Families walking by could "borrow" the books, read them, and then return them when they were done. The borrowers also sign out the books by writing their names, phone numbers and titles of books on a piece of paper that is in each box.
You can put out whatever kinds of books you want, children's, adult, sci-fi, cookbooks, mystery, etc. That's the beauty of something like this, what you don't have, someone else might!
I live in a suburb of Seattle and we have several of these "lending libraries" in many of our neighborhoods and they work really well. There are even systems like this in place in some of our small towns were there are no libraries at all. It does have to work on the honor system, but I haven't really heard of any problems.
This system might be a little challenging to set up, but so worth it!
Good luck with whatever you decided.
They have one of these out in dekalb. not sure when. but it is a huge thing. and really goes over well. books are donated ahead of time, and then put into genre's. the people who donate get some sort of tally sheet saying they donated "x" amount of books. then on teh day of the swap they get to take that many books out. people pay a small fee to get in. and if they did not donate books to be swapped they can just buy books if they want. they sell food, and have a kids corner etc. I think its great. we did it on a small scale last summer at the park. everyone brought books laid them on tables and we swapped
