GoryDetails, I'm in complete agreement with you. People can keep the books I've set free, if they are going to keep reading them.
SaintMargaret ----- Original Message ---- From: ecrust2001 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, December 11, 2006 5:58:56 PM Subject: [BookCrossing] Re: spirit of things - BC's not about forcing you to give up books you love... While it's true that, once we've registered, labeled, and released a book, we do rather hope it will keep traveling, there's certainly no time limit set by the site as to how long someone can or should keep a BC book before passing it along (and no way to enforce that if there were!). I'd much rather the finder felt happy to keep the book than pressured to pass it along - and while it is nice when someone loves a BC book so much AND values the "traveling book" idea so much that they will release the BC copy and acquire another one to keep, I think it's unrealistic to expect most people to do that, especially if they're not rabidly-active BCers like some of us {wry grin}. I do wonder why some people get so upset at the PC-status anyway; it's not as if that means the book's never going to travel again. Lots of people use that status just to keep others from requesting the book for trade, and even those who mean it as "I'm keeping this book indefinitely" will pass it along eventually - if only at the estate sale! I do think there ought to be different expectations if you're talking about book-hoarding behavior among active BCers who trade with each other vs. someone who found a BC book and joined the site to journal it, but is not otherwise active. If that person wants to keep the book, what's wrong with that? I'd hate to have some newbie join the site all delighted at having found a book they'd been wanting for ages, only to be told that they're expected to pass it along again. Now, if I find that someone who's active on the site has been requesting every RABCK in site and setting all of them to "PC," and shows no indication of passing those or any other books along, then I would certainly start to wonder what they were up to (though the suspicions of people snagging books for sale always seem odd to me, as most BC books are secondhand to begin with, often not in the best of shape, and if they're as thoroughly labeled as mine are they couldn't be resold for very much)! But some people seem to get caught up in the hoard-the-books syndrome, and if BCers spot that it's perfectly fair to refuse to send them any more books. But that's not the same as someone encountering a BC book and falling in love with it, and wanting to keep it on hand to read again and again. Sometimes I think it's the obvious nature of the "PC" status that bugs people. There are lots of BC books that were released or traded and have been sitting on someone's shelf with a TBR status for *years* now, but because that status suggests that the recipient might pass them along when (or if!) they read them, it just doesn't bother people as much. If that's the case, try viewing the "PC" books as "personal collection," not "permanent" - maybe that won't be as irksome! -GoryDetails See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing .com/referral/ GoryDetails ____________________________________________________________________________________ Cheap talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. http://voice.yahoo.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Have you told a friend today? http://bookcrossing.com/tellafriend Archives and email list settings: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BookCrossing Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BookCrossing/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BookCrossing/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
