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October 31, 2006
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Readers can swap books on Web site
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Bookins.com lets users clear off their shelves and restock with new reads.
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By Didi Tang
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Both Molly Remer and Barbara Johnson are avid readers, but the daughter and the mother living in the Rolla area have different interests.
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Remer likes nonfiction, and Johnson prefers fiction.
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Yet they have found a way to swap books.
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And, in the age of Internet, what else could it be? A Web site just for book swappers.
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Mitchell Silverman, a New York man, has created bookins.com to offer person-to-person book exchange services.
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Through the site, Remer and Johnson have found a much bigger circle of readers with whom to exchange books.
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"I really enjoy it," said Remer. "It's a lot of fun, and I also have been clearing up my bookshelves a little and restocking with new stuff."
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Johnson said she now keeps a fresher supply of books.
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"The books come and go pretty quickly," she said.
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Both Johnson and Remer are users of Amazon.com, where books can be bought at deep discounts, but they have also found bookins.com appealing.
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For one thing, the books are free, and it is free to ship them to interested readers.
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Those on the receiving end pay a flat fee of $3.99 per book to cover postage.
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"There's no reason ever to buy a new book again," Johnson said.
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"High-quality books are available at a minimum cost."
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Remer uses the site to add more books to a lending library of a local support group she belongs to.
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"The library is bigger with lower costs," she said.
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Plus, good books get shared, Johnson said.
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"It's a way to kind of recycle the books you are finished with but don't want to keep," Johnson said.
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Unlike other Web sites that peddle inexpensive books, bookins.com is structured for readers who want to exchange books but not those who just want to buy.
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Instead of dollars and cents, a user of bookins.com gets points when he or she ships out a book to another reader.
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The points then can be used for the shipper to get books he or she wants.
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Each book is assigned different points to reflect its market value, said Silverman, and the point system intends to lend fairness to book swapping.
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Bookins.com has a database with about 5 million titles, Silverman said.
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The idea for the online book-swapping service grew out of his home library, said Silverman.
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"I live in Manhattan," he said.
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"I have a small apartment and a lot of books."
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A book lover, Silverman said he finds it hard to give his books away for a quarter and would rather give them to his friends.
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Bookins.com, he said, extends that idea.
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First opened to the public in August 2005, the site now has more than 10,000 users with more than 100,000 books and is growing every month, Silverman said.
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"The goal is to build a business," said Silverman, who now works full-time on the Web site, "and to have a business to support everyone."
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