[ILL-L] Book swaps/exchanges

[Megan Bayonet]

I use Bookmooch personally and we're considering implementing it as part of
our ILL and Collection Development strategies.  

The hardest part, initially, is building up a stockpile of "points" with
which to make requests.  You earn points by entering books that you're
willing to give to someone else and then for actually shipping the book.
Then you can spend these points to get other books.  I've found that
Bookmooch is much more useful for fiction items than for academic items.
Also, since this a user to user system, there's no guarantee of when an item
will ship or what condition it will be in.  For my personal transactions I
normally get my items in 7-10 days (shipping via media mail) but I've waited
as much as a month after requesting some items.  Users are supposed to add
"condition notes" stating whether an item has highlighting or bent/torn
covers but this doesn't always happen and certainly isn't uniform - "light
cover wear" to one person is "good heavens this cover is tattered" to
somebody else.  

On the positive side, once you've received an item it's yours to keep.  You
can either re-list it (thus earning additional points) or add it to your
collection.  Entering items for trade is fast (ISBN or title searches pull
up existing records).  Also, the FREE factor of the service means that
you're not out anymore postage than you would be for a normal ILL
transaction.  I'd say that overall it would be worth a try.

Megan Bayonet
Interlibrary Loan Coordinator
mbayonet at mbc.edu
540-887-7317

-----Original Message-----
From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org]
On Behalf Of Laura Barnard
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 12:45 PM
To: ill-l at webjunction.org
Subject: [ILL-L] Book swaps/exchanges

Do any of you (as libraries or ILL offices) use book swaps or book exchanges
to get material for your ILL requests?  I am thinking of Swaptree,
BookMooch, etc.

What do you know about these sites and how they work that make them a useful
option, or what do you know that makes them undesirable for ILL purposes?

Laura Barnard
Interlibrary Loans
Seattle Public Library (UOK)
206-386-4601
ill at spl.org



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