I wondered when someone would...

[susandennis]

jimcarson first mentioned the idea a couple of years ago when I was bitching about our library's hold process.  Invariably, they would send me a notice that they had a dozen of my holds in when I could not even carry that many home much less read them all in time.  And this after waiting for weeks with nothing.

He said they should have a system like Netflix.

Well... someone has done it.  www.bookswim.com (edit to fix typo - thanks, Dawn!) - rather an odd name, I think.  And rather a puny selection.  I tried 5 books I was interested in reading and they had none of them. BUT, I applaud their effort.

Back in the dark ages when I lived in Manhattan, every corner had a Sundries shop that sold hair spray and toothpaste and newspapers and coffee and they rented books.  They had a little library of 25 or so of the latest hotest fiction best sellers.  I do not remember how much it cost to rent them but I do remember it was amazingly cheap.  The NYC library's copies were checked out with a waiting list into the next century but the corner shop had a copy just waiting for me.  It was great.

I wonder if they still do that?

Comments

[seattlejo.livejournal.com]

There are currently 14 items waiting at the library for me, with another 18 in transit. don't you think at some point their system would say "thats enough for now"

Mind you most of it's audio so it wont be a big deal, but still.

[susandennis]

I remember the time I had 12 at the downtown library and it was summer and the idea of carting them home just put me under!

[jimcarson.livejournal.com]

King County limits me to 20 holds at any given time. This gets to be a pain in the butt when there's a book I want that has a hellacious queue because it's popular. If I give up my spot for more instant gratification, I have to get back in line at the end. Under some conditions, as soon as you place a hold it gets tagged as being in transit, not giving me any time to place it in the penalty box or cancel. Thus, I can't even front-load my queue.

[mixter11nm.livejournal.com]

Not sure if any of them rent them out but some of the local stores do have used books for sale. In fact, you practically find a book dealer on every other corner downtown.

[susandennis]

Actually the first used bookstore I ever saw was in NYC but this was rent and return. I would never have bought books back then. No place to put them. But really no reason to own.

[howeird]

I guess Seattle Public Library has changed their policies since I was in college. Used to be a limit of 5 books on hold, and you could not put a hold on a book which had more than a 2-month waiting list. And they would refer you to the King County library system for more possibilities.

[susandennis]

Oh yeah... big changes... I don't think there's any limit PLUS I'll bet you had to go to the librarian to pick up your holds, didn't you? No more. Now you go to the hold shelves and get 'em yourself. I rarely need a librarian for anything unless the library card scanner isn't working.

[jimcarson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, KCLS has them on a shelf with little pieces of named paper sticking out. There's self-checkout, too. (Actually, there'd be nothing 'cept your conscience preventing you from bypassing the checkout entirely.)

But, that being said, the librarians are kung fu masters of the system. I lost a book and they auto-renewed it for me for a couple of months to find it. The inter-library loan is also good, though there's no transparency in it until the book actually arrives. It's been fun seeing where they get stuff from. The furthest an ILL book came from was Tulane University. *just for me*

[photoholic62.livejournal.com]

Is this the proper link? Yours is 404... ?

http://www.bookswim.com/

Gonna go peek about.... Thanks!