Summary

  • BookCrossing, launched in April 2001, connects individual physical books to online journals through a number carried inside each copy.
  • Its official FAQ recalls newcomers registering books again after finding them, and dates a revised mnemonic to January 2010. The instruction had to preserve a journey already under way.

The readers were doing what they had been told. That was the trouble.

BookCrossing's early instructions boiled the adventure down to three pleasing verbs: “Read, Register and Release”. Some newcomers arrived with a book they had found, already labelled and already registered. They obeyed the recipe anyway. The paperback got another number; the next entry began a fresh journal, with its earlier travels stranded in the old one. One battered cover now had two online biographies.

The site's own FAQ remembers the ensuing repairs and explanations. Eventually the mnemonic was revised. Its account dates the formal change to January 2010. The crucial new verb was “Ready”: prepare the book for its next reader. An unregistered copy needed registration; a registered one needed another journal entry. A small editorial change was doing database maintenance at the kitchen table.

A label joined two worlds

BookCrossing began in April 2001. Its official history credits Ron Hornbaker's idea and the help of Kaori Hornbaker, Bruce Pedersen and Heather Pedersen in launching the site. The proposal gave a familiar act—passing on a book—a continuing address on the web.

The unit was the individual physical copy. Each received a BookCrossing identity number, or BCID. The number went inside the book, where the next reader could find it. The journal stayed online, ready to accumulate another encounter after the book left its previous owner's shelf.

That arrangement appears in the organisation's 2010 media kit: physical books receive unique identities, while an online archive lets their readers keep journals and reviews and remain connected as the copies travel. A paper object could leave the room and retain a place in the owner's curiosity.

The official guide describes modest tools for the job. A number can be handwritten inside the cover or attached on a label. The recipient uses that existing number to add an entry. A recorded release and later journal activity can bring an email back to earlier participants. Someone has to open the cover, notice the invitation and decide to write. The next chapter of the book's journey arrives through that small act of cooperation.

The cheerful instruction created extra paperwork

For this to work, the number had to stay with the copy. A new reader was another episode in the same history. Registering the book again gave that episode a fresh starting point and left the earlier trail elsewhere.

The instruction greeted a person holding a book and sent them towards another registration. There was the label inside the cover, evidence that somebody had done this job already. Yet the three verbs gave the newcomer a job to do as well. The website was asking for diligence and then having to clean up after it.

The revised preparation step made room for two situations: a book arriving in the system for the first time, and a book arriving in somebody else's hands. The physical label helped the reader recognise which situation applied. The website could then collect another entry against the number already in circulation.

BookCrossing's story gives the early social web a pleasantly grubby object to work with: a paperback, possibly with a bent corner, making its way through other people's bags. Its continuity depended on readers and on the wording that guided them. Sometimes the web's memory needed a better verb.

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