Community Library – Bengaluru
Hello my name is Sowmya and I have too many books.
chorus of internet voices: *hi sowmya thanks for sharing your story with us*
I’d love to loan you a book – but there’s massive information asymmetry here. You don’t know what I have, and I don’t know what you want. To my mind, this is an annoying but solvable problem – and, magic words, it can work at scale!
It all started with this:
With the help of smart and community-oriented folks, we debated this for a week or so – and then set up:
Our approach to the idea of sharing all of our books seemed really simple in hindsight – it took multiple painful group DM conversations to get there (note, wow do DMs suck for such conversations – but moving to slack is such a pain if everyone doesn’t have it)
- We list our books
- We let people borrow them
- We use Dunzo as a pickup option / or physically if logistics permits
- We run on trust – so no money, no fees – just be kind to the books
- We find someway to ensure everyone knows the available/not status of each book in our repository
And tada:
GOOD READS CLUNKY BUT LOVABLE INTERFACE TO THE RESCUE: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/857878-bangalore-open-library
Why don’t you join us? Or run something similar in your city / geography? Ping me, or @arvindv or @captn3m0 to know more.
- How to borrow: Find the name of the person who added it to the “available” shelf on Goodreads, and drop them a message. They’ll let you know what to do next.
- I have books that I’d like to add: If you’re okay with the logistics of other readers dropping by to pick up books, here’s what you do:
- Make sure you have a goodreads account and are logged in
- Join the Group: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/…
- Add the books you’re willing to lend to the “available” bookshelf.
