Can Not Find a Way to Swap Used Books

[lightcrystal]

Everything that I have looked at has been either:

1. Insecure log in. Why anyone isn't using https:// in this day and age I have no idea.
2. America only.
3. Doesn't exist anymore

I have a mish mash of Fighting Fantasy books, Dragons of Pern and Lone Wolf that I would happily swap. Especially for other books by these authors [or similar genres e.g Storytrails books] that I never got to read.

[GettingTooOld]

1. Insecure log in. Why anyone isn't using https:// in this day and age I have no idea.

Because of the fundamental fact of man-in-the-middle attack, there is no possibility and no chance of any kind of privacy on the internet. The ISP and Government have access to everything, no matter the encryption. If you can ever find a way to explain a secret method of communicating with me, and explain it here in a public message, and have all further communications through the public message, then you'll reap trillions of dollars in rewards for your discovery. It's literally that big, and a leap in technology that has never yet been made. Your ISP knows everything you do, and therefore, governments know everything you do. (online, your phone keeps tabs on you the rest of the time)

Regarding the books, there are free libraries or book exchange points in your country I believe. Worth investigating perhaps. They are public and free places where people just leave books, rifle through whats there, take what they want and return it when done. The seem quite popular. They are set up in people's gardens, and public places, often decorated hippy style, often not.

here is what they look like.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=remus&q=free+book+exchange&iax=images&ia=images

oh, and I just thought a good point is the government doesn't know what you're reading.

[GettingTooOld]

further to the book exchange topic, there are IMPORTANT RULES FOR BOOK EXCHANGES

most of the book exchanges just suggest take a book and leave a book at 1 to 1 ratio, which is not really great as you may want to offload a heap of them. Some suggest to just do as you please, and obviously some people worry that SOME people will take too many books.

I suggest that the following rule which I have come up with to combat this threat should be posted at each book exchange.

It's ok to take as many books as you please, so long as the quantity taken is no more than two (or whatever adjustment is required)
For more than this number, and especially armfuls, this is only OK under the following conditions,

1) that the 'borrower' (and this is perhaps sarcastic use of the word borrower) does not walk away, but instead moves at a moderate pace to facilitate jumping into the air at every 4-7 steps taken, and clicking their heels together while their feet are off the ground. This is to be done left and right alternately.
2) the 'borrower' must giggle whilst making their retreat. If these conditions are met, they may provision themselves with all the books they desire without any further limitations.

[annise]

There are book boxes around here - but there aren't rules - they are weather proof boxes on a post/wall on the block (plot) line but they don't say you swap, just that you can add a book and/or take 1 you would like to read, then bring it back if you want.
But whether it would work for you depends on the area and you need to accept that you may not get anything back for it - it's a gift.
Well you do get a warm feeling that someone is enjoying the book (or it was just the right height to stop the table rocking)

Anne

[lightcrystal]

I've also had the wacky ideas of using some of my useless books. I have a whole set of funk and wagnalls encyclopedias. Is there a good way to use them for sound proofing if I put them in my recording room? I don't know how I could stick them to a wall.

[GettingTooOld]

lots of glue. use a tray, dunk them and make bird-boxes. You can use a tablesaw when the glue is dry to make angles for the roof and a hole saw of course to let the little birds in and out.

Thing is, you'll get way out of hand if you don't design it as a big brother house from the start and put the cameras in up front. it's too hard to set them up otherwise. ask me how I know. and it's easy to connect them all the same as a security system to a DVR. (digital video recorder)

[annise]

You could go in for pressed flowers - we had a set of Encyclopedias Britannica when young and I used them as a press and made gift cards.
Your could hollow them out and keep your diamonds in them.
You could tear out the pages next time there is a toilet paper shortage....

Anne

[lightcrystal]

If I had to nominate my books that nobody would want:

Four large books on 3.5 rules on Dungeons and Dragons. Full page color illustrations. Maybe an art student would like them. Now the Internet Archive has all of those books as pdfs! That's where I am conflicted; I like the Internet Archive yet at that point I have that thing as a physical book that I paid for! At that point surely the Internet Archive is treating books as "graveware" to use a computer term; computer games that are still in copyright but they have been abandoned by a company.

[GettingTooOld]

"graveware"

I oft think all books are graveware, because nobody reads books anymore. everyone worships the computer. Nothing can or should be done about it, it's just how it is. Although, it would be somewhat easy to find a country or countries where the economy is really poor, and people can't afford computers and electricity and that sort of thing. Where they might want to learn improve their spoken English skills. Could send all your books to different places to be distributed by charities. Like leeds, manchester and liverpool for example. (duck) (run)

I've recently been looking through scans of very old books on internet archive (IA). the google people seem to think the first ten scans (literally) should be blank pages with fingers in the picture wearing rubber fingertip thingys. Ergh, some terrible scans indeed.

I prefer the time before rabid paranoid surveillance was tyrannically oppressive. I enjoyed being able to slip into big university library buildings where the library was the 10 story building and every floor was books with not a huge amount of people about. You had to turn on the lights yourself, and computers were there for you to make use of yourself if you wanted to, during that brief period where you could do that without the administration demanding your identity before you could do anything at all on it. I hate today. at least here. the techno-tyranny sucks.

Doh! I got so distracted in memory lane I forgot the anecdote I was going to mention. Yes, there are a lot of books we have that we'll never want to read ever. I think I had some tree identification ones, like cancelled and sold for 50c and think books with a lot of pages and pictures, but who wants them ? nobody.

I was at a physiotherapist office waiting room once and the secretary has a really really thick book on the desk, a true tome. It's 'encyclopedia of garden pests and diseases' and quietly,
I'm asking 'is that yours ?'
she's like 'yes'
'It's huge, have you read that, or like, are you reading it' (not referring to the present business hours of course)
'ahh, yes, I am reading it'
'That is one huge book'
'oh, yes it is really, isn't it'
'I guess you'd be really popular at dinner parties then'
she thought for about 2 seconds and burst out laughing at that.
my deadpan delivery had been spot on.

[txphred]

There used to be 'trade and save' book stores around here. You'd take books, usually paperback, and get a 50% to 70% credit towards the purchase of the store's reduced price books (which you find your name in when you get home). The last one around here used arson to balance the accounts for a profit.

I don't think there is a way to swap used books. Since the dawn of civilization one finds lamentations on the problem: in the texts of Ur and Babylon; Egyptian hieroglyphics; Tibetan libraries and precolumbian American writings.