Sutton Bookshare Digital Showcase

What is it?

Sutton Bookshare is a simple and easy to use exchange platform for people who have books they'd like to lend - and for the people who want to borrow them. Sutton Bookshare was developed by Adrian Short and Sutton Libraries service. It uses an online platform that enables you to register books that you own and offer to lend them to others as a community resource; in return, you are able to borrow books from others.

You can see people's books on the site as small thumbnail images, and read some information about them. You can then get in touch directly with the book owner to borrow it for free.

How the idea developed

The idea for the site came through as a response to the Nesta programme Make IT Local, which sought innovative applications for public data sets. The development of the the Bookshare idea was awarded £30,000 to be prototyped and launched. Sutton Libraries service worked with Adrian to develop the service as a social supplement to the existing library service in Sutton.

The project is still running in Sutton, but as the code is openly available here, it could be re-used or adapted so others could set up similar types of sharing schemes. If you're thinking of doing that, be sure to contact Adrian Short, the original developer to let him know!

Adrian@adrianshort.co.uk