Day 217 - Swimming

Thought of the day: A friend was asking for book recommendations on Facebook the other day.  I followed up with her and ended up exchanging physical books with her today.  The experience demonstrated to me how easy and fun it could be to exchange book recommendations, and maybe even books, in a local community.  So tonight I set up a prototype "book swap club" for the neighborhood using a bunch of Google tools including spreadsheets, forms, and groups.  If this was a serious venture, it should probably have been a dedicated service or a specialized app.  Of course, the idea of book swap is nothing new and there are applications out there that help you do just that and plus some.  College book swap seems to be most popular because a textbook can be ridiculous expensive and its useful lifespan tends to be short.  However, I'm not seeing applications that promote book sharing within a local, non-college community.  To me, sharing with friends locally makes more sense than sharing with strangers globally - it saves the unnecessary overhead and hurdle of shipping, it takes advantage of common tastes and local interests and promotes a better sense of community.  If something is good for the self, the community, and the environment, it's certainly a good thing that is worth doing.

Photo of the day:

Finally a sunny day - Jasmine swam in the outdoor pool in the afternoon.  Jasmine is a book lover.  I am sure she would love to do book swap with her friends too.  A junior books sharing project?