Sutton Bookshare

Books are often things that we share between friends and colleagues. Libraries facilitate the lending of books that we don’t otherwise have (they do a lot else besides, but that’s what most people use them for). The main issue in sharing books is knowing who has what, and if it’s available. This is what Sutton Bookshare set out to solve.

Adrian Short has been developing online public services and campaigning for better access to local data for years. As he’s based in Sutton, South London, he knows people at Sutton Council. Daniel Ratchford, the Chief Exec of Sutton Council, spotted the NESTA project and mentioned it on Twitter. Adrian got involved in the ensuing conversation.

The idea for Sutton Bookshare was partly inspired by the work of Tony Hirst and others from the Arcadia Project at Cambridge University Library which innovated around library data. It also came from Adrian’s experience of being involved in a Local Economic Trading Scheme, where people exchange skills rather than money. Could this be applied to books? Services like Bookcrossing and Library Thing showed the interest people have in sharing and cataloguing books respectively, so could it work on a local level?

Developing the Idea

What are the needs the service is trying to satisfy? This was the initial question that Adrian and Ben faced. They identified three main opportunities:

• Making books that aren’t available in the local library service, available to borrow. Most people have books that aren’t in the local library - specialist topics, obscure authors.
• Improve the existing library service by providing links into their catalogue (browsing the existing library catalogue online isn’t easy).
• Build relationships through shared interests. Book clubs do this by bringing people together to discuss their experience of a book. Books can act as a means to meet people locally who share an interest with you.

The initial idea was to have both the library service and local people’s books co-existing in the service. However, due to problems getting hold of the library data in a timely fashion, the web service was first built around residents’ own books, using a small group of people to help generate a sample database.

The design of the service itself was influenced by Clay Shirky’s notion of Situated Software. Shirky’s argument is that defined groups (by interest or geography) will already have ways of self organising that you need not design over. In the case of Sutton Bookshare, why create a system for managing the reputation of users or managing the tracking of books, when people themselves can do that well enough.

We had initially planned a user-feedback system that reminds you when books are due, facilitates comments on reliability of users and even grades the condition of books. Then we remembered the 10th principle of the Agile Manifesto (www.agilemanifesto.org): “Simplicity (the art of maximising the amount of work not done)” is essential. In this case, the Bookshare website can self-generate useful feedback and we have managed to build something that presumes trustworthiness – a presumption that might just nudge behaviour in that direction. This simplicity of design means we have achieved something that has the potential to be great since day one. There are more features that could be introduced. Typing in an ISBN number is a bit slow and it would be great to use your Smartphone or webcam to scan things in… but it works.
Ben Unsworth, Sutton Council

So, many features and functions were designed out to create a simple service that worked well from the start.

The live service

The beta release of the service ended in March and the service has subsequently been promoted through the council to local residents.

The core of the service allows people to:

• Upload information about books
• Have a shareable collection of books
• Browse and search for books
• Discover whether a book is available to borrow or not
• Ask to borrow a book

People wanting to find something to read can easily browse the database of books people have listed online and those in the library service. Once they’ve found a book they can “watch it” (to come back to later) or to borrow it.

The service enables people to submit their own books using ISBN data, retrieving the bibliographic data and cover image from Google Books (http://books.google.com/). A useful by-product of the way the service has been developed is that once you have submitted your books you can share your collection using a URL.

When lending a book the only information the service asks for is “who are you lending to?”. Sutton Bookshare doesn’t try and manage that relationship, it treats the users as responsible, and presumes that the lender and lendee will work out for themselves where to exchange the book and the best way to notify the other when it’s due back.

“Sutton Bookshare keeps track of how long a book has stayed out on loan for but it doesn't use due dates, fixed loan periods or renewals. You're free to agree and renegotiate the loan period informally with the borrower at any time. This keeps Sutton Bookshare friendly and flexible.” Source: www.suttonbookshare.org.uk

How the book is exchanged is also left to the two people to agree. It could be a cafe, a public space, somewhere familiar to both.

If the book is not available to borrow, you can opt to “watch” it, enabling it to be found more easily next time.

Challenges

The Data

Getting data from the library management system, to show the inventory of books in Sutton Council libraries, took far longer than anticipated. The project team had no formal means through which to demand the data in the timescale. Instead they relied on goodwill and contacts to get the data.

Perception

There has been much debate about the library services needing to innovate in an age of eBooks, Google Books and the Kindle. The Government budget cuts meant many councils have looked to close or reduce library services. However, this service is not intended as a replacement for the library, but rather as something that compliments the library service, building on the local inventory to help foster “open literacy” and encourage reading. The timing of this project meant that many people initially perceived it as being a challenge to the library service - something that could have hindered its adoption.

Concerns by people championing the library service have been alleviated now that links to the library catalogue have been added.

Next steps

The project has been publicly launched as a service by Sutton Council and the team are reviewing feedback from this launch to see how the service could be improved. The possibility of putting a bookshare in the schools network to allow pupils to share textbooks and revision books is also being considered.

Because Sutton Bookshare is an open source project it is hoped that other developers will also look to create their own Bookshare sites and in the process develop other features and functions to support their audiences. (you can get a copy of the code to create your own Bookshare service at https://github.com/adrianshort/Sutton-Open-Library

Project website:

http://suttonbookshare.org.uk/

Project Leads:

Ben Unsworth www.twitter.com/benunsworth

Sutton Council http://sutton.gov.uk

Adrian Short http://adrianshort.co.uk/