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January 09, 2007
Book Swim beats libraries to the Netflix model for book delivery
Michael Stephens was kind enough to point us to Book Swim, an online book rental service akin to Netflix. If this service succeeds, it points to a real problem for libraries. Our brand is "books" and if we can't even hold on to that market, when our services are free for goodness sake, then something in what we're doing is very, very wrong.
I do want to point out that Book Swim's homepage has a little section entitled "What about libraries?" which reads as follows:
We love the library and have NO INTENTION of replacing your local public library system. In fact, we'd like to help out libraries by extending our books to library patrons, effectively supplementing limited inventory resources. If you represent a library, email us to discuss our services...
So, what they're saying is effectively: "We like libraries and we know your libraries have junky collections, so our service supplements them. But if you don't want to pay us, see if your library wants to pay us to circulate books they don't have in stock to you. We're happy to take their money too. (That's how I read it anyway)...
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Book Swim is not the first to produce a Netflix version of a library service. I recently came across Booksfree.com (www.booksfree.com)which has apparently been around since 2000 providing a Netflix type service for paperback books and CD/MP3 books. I've blogged a little about it in a post on OPACs and direct delivery of library books here: http://swashford.blogspot.com/2007/01/20-ideas-to-stop-opacs-sucking.html
Posted by: swashford | January10, 2007
I'm such a skeptic, but until they actually launch, I'm kind of viewing them as e-mail harvesters, not a real company.
As to them competing with libraries... maybe. But I can check whatever I want out of my library (or any other county library) for free, renew it an unlimited number of times unless someone else is waiting for it, and take out as many items as I want at a time, and it's all free. And that covers books, CDs, DVDs, etc., and if my library doesn't have it, they get it in a few days from another county library. So the only difference for me is that I can't keep it forever if someone else wants the book, and I have to occasionally stop in at the library to get the items (unless I'm housebound--our library has a mail program for that.)
And I darn well know the county system has over 80,000 titles. So for me, the library system sounds like it's kicking BookSwim a$$. ;)
I would, however, be curious to see how quickly one could get a new release from their local library versus from BookSwim, or a classic, or certain popular book club books. That would be an interesting comparison should BookSwim ever start up. I could see BS maybe being faster for new releases if they had a huge number of them and not as much demand as the library, but they also have to add in some mail time.
Anyone want to join and do comparisons for us? :P
Posted by: Meg | January12, 2007
The Seattle Public Library (http://www.spl.org/) already has many of the features offered. An online queue, etc. Even the small local library in the town I grew up in had the ability to hold books and/or mail them to your home. And that was 20 years ago.
Posted by: melissa | January17, 2007
I unfortunately am one of those terrible people who have a hard time turning anything in on time. I have four public library cards - each with over $50 in fines. Netflix has literally saved me hundreds of dollars in Blockbuster fees, and a service like this could save me the same amount in library fines. Sad, but true. Caren Lee, MLS
Posted by: Caren Lee | March11, 2007
Wow, an MLS-holder with 4 cards with a total of $200+ in fines. No offense intended Caren, but if we can't set a good example for our users, who can? If I have fines on my card because I kept something out too late, I pay them. It's my responsibility to do so. I am, in principle, totally against fines, but since they exist, I don't just go get another card--I pay my fines and keep going.
Posted by: Sarah Houghton-Jan (Librarian in Black) | March12, 2007
I joined both booksfree.com and http://bookswim.com yesterday and would be happy to provide comparison for anyone interested. Bookswim provides both hardcovers and paperback books for online rental.As with Netflix, shipping both ways is free and there are NO late fees. There are a numer of reasons why I am excited about this new business. First of all, I am housebound. I cannot get to the library and can't afford to always be hiring taxis to take me and wait whilst I look around. Seonly, I tend to live in nature-y (which usually means culturally backwater and hicky ) places where the libraries are awful and the librarians don't even know who wrote GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. This would be fine if the Inter-Library-loan system were more efficient, more generous in terms of how many you could get at one time, and free - but they aren't. Also, some people might like he recommendation system, where you can hypothetically discover things you'd like based on things you have liked - of course, as with Amazon.com and Netflix, this is computer-generated and thus not usually of any good - but how many librarians do you know who could tell you that if you like reading Sebald you'll like reading Christopher Alexander as well, either? Now THAT would be a cool service for real people. Also, I am definitely one of those fine-impoverished people with a neurosis about returning rentals on time. I want to note that supposedly just any customer can write to them and request that they get anything in print! I have done so, because whilst http://bookswim.com 's nonfiction is very strong and interesting, their novels for rent leave something to be desired - wouldn't it be too cool if you could just ask to rent anything they didn't have and you could because they'd get it for you? This is the ideal of ILL, but it just never seems to materialize with ILL.
Posted by: Sid | August 1, 2007
Just to update you guys - I wrote bookswim.com yesterday monring to suggest some titles for their collection - I'd only got a 3-at-a-time membership and their fiction selection seemed sparse to me, although of course I am not only interested in novels! LATER THAT DAY they said the books I had requested were added and I could add them to my queue, which I did. I then wanted to upgrade to an 11-at-a-time membership, but have to wait a whole month to do that. I do have political problems with the site - I am most relieved that, unlike the evilly amoral Amazon.com they do not (now, yet) feature advertisements of juicy murder and torture on pages for comedy DVDs, to strike us all as we shop, but they do flaunt on the first page, first thing you see, some hardcover for rent characterzing in a fat, prurient way animals as "food" - shame on them. These people who want to be big businesses - they have to learn that there are going to be more and more people in the world who don' think of animal cruelty and slaughter as saucy and sexy or amusing. Anyhoo, sorry for the rant. I got all sorts of cool hardcover books like THE LAST EXPEDITION about Stanley in Afrca and THE SECRET LIFE ABOUT OSCAR WILDE, a hardcover that actually seems to be a new, interesting study of Wilde and his London, not the samo thing, and a cool biography of Coleridge, and a paperback novel by Saltykov, the best Russian novel in my opinion except for Anna K., even better in some ways, and considerably funnier. By the way, although it's much easier finding what you are looking for or finding that it isn't in the catalog at booksfree.com, they have done nothing about honoring my requests of things they should add to their catalog, yet. I like their lay-out better - it is less "corporate"-looking. But they certainly don't have the hardcovers, nonfiction, and academia that Bookswim has or gets for you - and those they have - well, you don't find out till you've added them to your list that they probably have "low" availability - which means you could be waiting a long, long time for them.
Posted by: Sid | August 2, 2007
