Ellen Barth has recently completed the National and Transnational Studies Master of Arts programBOOKSWAPPER.DE at the University of Münster, Germany, with a focus on ANDbook studies. THE TEASILY-SHAREDhe digital age and the Internet have changed PAPER the way media are BOOK shared. Media spreadability, governed by content producers as well as consumers who share and repurpose content according to their own needs, allows for content to travel in more complex and messier ways than formerly possible. Rather than increasing the spread of e-books, these digital advances have facilitated the spread of physical books. The German book sharing website bookswapper.de is one example of this. Making use of laws and customs surrounding books as objects as well as symbolic and cultural goods, the website uses an online system to spread physical books to its users, highlighting the problematic spreadability of the e-book in the digital age. Keywords: book swapping; bookswapper.de; book circulation; e-books; media spreadability is a traveler, moving from agent to agent through a path that goes from n ‘What Is the History of Books?’ author to reader. Since its conception, which,Robert inDarnton his opinion, attempts had to started bring order to the field of book history, I 1 With this aim, progresses,this model and has as orderbeen givesinfluencing way to to look ‘less like a field than a book scholars; but, as the digital age linkstropical together rain forest’.the many disciplines of Circuit begins to seem overly bookDarnton studies proposed and connectsa holistic modelthe agents that simplistic.disorder, Darnton’s2 The metaphor Communications of the in the life cycle of the book. In the model, imagined as a circuit, the book 3 circuit, ‘closing, firing, connecting’, does not always do justice to 153the TXT_2017-18_FinalDocument_V4.indd 153 30/08/2018 10:23:08 complex movement of digital media as and remixed with personal videos, and they travel and spread. For this, a new to television sets—the e-book lags noticeablytelevision shows behind. are Althoughno longer confinede-books, unpredictablemetaphor is apt: patterns. dandelion seeds in the wind, floating away from the source in his is the metaphor used by theseas digital potential files, have added the capacity values toare be rarelyshared exploited. infinitely, Thecheaply, opportunities and quickly, for T online media spreadability, rather than Jenkins, Ford, and Green to enabling and increasing the spread of digital-ageexplain media what circulation they call as‘media it is digital posted,spreadability’, re-posted, a term shared, that linkeddescribes to, physical book. blogged, re-blogged, and so on.4 The books, are, in fact, benefiting the use of the term spreadable media is his contradictory situation is evinced by the existence of which, according to the authors, places Tonline book sharing websites tooan alternativemuch agency to onthe media oft-used producers ‘viral’, and not enough on audiences who website aimed at providing readers in like bookswapper.de, a German Instead, their understanding of modern5 language books.7 Nearly everything ‘share content for their own purposes’. Germany with access to used English- upmedia forces circulation determine is ‘a hybrid how materialmodel’, one is descriptionabout the ofwebsite’s books, thebook coordination exchange sharedwhere aacross ‘mix ofand top-down among cultures and bottom- in far ofsystem swaps is digital:with people the organization from all overand the country, and the feedback for than previously possible. In the digital completed swaps. However, despite age,more media-sharing participatory (andwebsites messier)6 that ways’make this streamlined online system, when use of this circulation model—such as it comes to the actual book exchange, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram— are ubiquitous. On many of these sites, books shared on bookswapper.de are professional and amateur content is physical,things move not offline.digital. This is because the given away freely, shared with others based on interest and blown into the he bookswapper.de system works online breeze. Tto swap their reading material nd while this hybrid model for somethinglike this: newparticipants register thatwith want the of media spreadability is not Aa purely digital phenomenon upload information about the books (informal and creative person-to- theywebsite own and but create no longer a user want, profile, such then as person media sharing has always been the length and condition of the book, a brief plot description, and a digital the Internet has certainly contributed to photo of the cover. They wait for another thispossible—just messy, participatory think of mediathe mixtape), spread, user to request one of their books, and although at times in surprising ways. when a request is made, the owner is While video and music have made the name and address of the requester so notified with an email containing the jumpTXT - Theto Bookdigital—songs Issue: Social areSymbolism streamed TXT_2017-18_FinalDocument_V4.indd 154 30/08/2018 10:23:09 the book can be sent through the mail. the fabric of everyday life. For book After the book is received, the user gets can use to request a book from another lovers and readers in Germany, this bookswapper.dea ‘token’, a piece of user. online Hence currency the idea they of pickingincludes up visiting a novel a city’s while free on bookshelf; vacation purchasing second-hand books; and shelf, to be read at the beach, and themmediately, ‘swap’. the disadvantages from a hostel’s take-one-leave-one of this system become apparent. home. These are mundane actions that ITo receive books, participants havethen bebecome discarded so commonplace,before the journey that must give up their online anonymity the laws to support them are rarely, if and divulge their name and home ever, consulted. Evidence of this from address to complete strangers on the bookswapper.de is that the website makes no mention of the packaging, buy postage, legality of exchanging andInternet. make They a trip must to findthe physical books through mailbox, all to send the has been The closest they come With an online system ‘Germanunquestionably culture tothe site’saddressing online system.this is alreadybook via in place, “snail-mail”. it seems in their Frequently as though swapping Asked Questions (FAQ) e-books would be far by the book, section. In reply to easier, and potentially bothinfluenced by what safer, than swapping it contains paper books. Yet, these the question ‘Do I get disadvantages have and by what it youmy dobooks not lendback?’ books the herewebsite but responds:swap them ‘No, for particular, the legality good. The swapper who andhidden traditions advantages; of sha in- requested and received represents.’ for sending books as cultural goods apparently, is all the website feels it ring physical objects, and the low rate one of your books then owns it’. This, book is free to be shared and spread. throughhese the advantages German mail. stem from the must say on the matter. As an object, a fact that physical books are ut physical books are not only Tsupposed be portable, books are vehicles, both Bpossess symbolic and cultural real and symbolic, to spread. of knowledge Designed and to material objects; they also culture.8 bothvalue. by whatGerman it contains culture and has by whatbeen it they are ableBooks to beare shared objects, with and,others. as represents.unquestionably This influencedis, after all, by the the country book, Actsobjects, of sharing,according such to theas giving German a book law,9 Book Fair. The cultural importance of to a neighbor, are so common that they theof Gutenberg, spreadability Luther, of physicaland the Frankfurtbooks is goto anearly friend unnoticed. or ‘lending’ The a legalcup of right sugar of exchange of ownership is woven into to send books through the mail at a supported in Germany by the ability 155 TXT_2017-18_FinalDocument_V4.indd 155 30/08/2018 10:23:09 reduced rate, of which the bookswapper. allow bibliophiles to congregate de system takes advantage. To get this online in order to review, discuss, low Büchersendung rate—one Euro for and recommend books, but sharing books up to 100 grams—the envelope the content of those books remains must be clearly marked as a book heavily restricted. When compared to and closed in a way that facilitates the material book, it seems as though e-books are not supposed to spread. only other caveat is that nothing else They are not owned but licensed, they mayinspection be inside by post the office envelope officials. besides The have an uncertain existence (as evinced books (or other approved printed 1984 Kindle erasure material, such as maps).10 This method debacle), and they are restricted by of sending books through the mail by Amazon’s13 convoluted set of electronic rules put in iterations dating back to the early digital rights management (DRM). ‘[A]14 18thgoes backcentury. to the11 1950s,Through with changing earlier governments and world wars, from copiedplace to protectand shared, the copyright from person owners’, to government oversight to privatization, person,DRM prevents or even digital from devicebooks tofrom device. being the cultural value of spreading books The e-books that do live up to their15 easily and cheaply through the mail because, according to Roloff, the state masses,full potential mostly as exist digital on pirate files, websites. without has anbeen interest supported in spreading in Germany. knowledge, This is Thus,DRM, andsharing freely these shared books, with even the ifonline they are scanned from the physical copy sitting on your own bookshelf, is illegal. and ‘the cheaper prices [for sending12 books] are supposed to simplify the urther complicating the issue is sending of the book as a cultural good’. the fact that the book exchanges and customs regarding books as Ftaking place through bookswapper.