BookMooch: a gift economy for books

BookMooch: a gift economy for books: "David Bollier, who maintains one of the best blogs on the internet regarding Commons-related topics, has a great news and commentary item on a new service which allows you to exchange used books, i.e. BookMooch. I’m reblogging it at lenght, as it really important initiative. First of all, what is it? David explains:   “One of the great blessings of digital networks is their capacity to incubate and nourish gift economies of people. I’m excited to learn about a new experiment, BookMooch, which functions as a global gift economy of book lovers. We all have plenty of books that we don’t really want any more – and we all covet other books that may be a bit too expensive or difficult for us to acquire. Why not work out an exchange pool? That’s what BookMooch is — a vast international book exchange made possible by a software system that tracks its own BookMooch “currency” of points. (In this sense, it resembles the Time Dollars barter-exchange program – another i"