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 order been gives influencing 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 153 the
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, The cheaply, 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 linked describes 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 on the 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 of website’s books, the book 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: new participants 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 media the 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 - The to Book digital—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 do books not lend back?’ 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 what German it contains culture and hasby what been it they are able Books to be are 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 legal cup ofright 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 officeenvelope 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. In making use of German laws regarding the spread of knowledge andobjects, culture as wellthrough as cultural books, traditions the manyde resemble people. For online example, file sharing,there is the in bookswapper.de system gets the best which one file is made available to function. When a swap is made and a their physical books legally and cheaply userbookswapper.de receives a book, ‘current the online reading listing list’ throughout of both the worlds: mail, while, the ability at the to sharesame of that book is not deleted from the time, using a modern digital system to website, but is instead saved in the new connect a large number of interested readers. But the bookswapper.de system also highlights the problematic bookreader’s again, ‘current they readingdo not havelist’. Whento create the spreadability of the digital book. user has read and/or wants to swap the Although it might be expected that re-listed on the website with a simple digital technologies, especially the clicka new of book a button, profile. facilitating Books can multiple thus be Internet, would bring about a shift swaps of the same book. The website from the sharing of physical books acknowledges this as its aim, stating to the sharing of digital e-books, that has not been the case. Many websites that with the ‘current reading list’, users TXT - The Book Issue: Social Symbolism ‘can easily relist books to offer them for
TXT_2017-18_FinalDocument_V4.indd 156 30/08/2018 10:23:09 This shows that 16 as the material book has been. In this swapping (again)’. fundamental part of their readers’ lives, the website‘s intention is not for books It is a circuit of communication, with bookshelf,to be swapped but instead once and to thenbe part find of a theway, Darnton’sbook, the model traveler, remains symbolizing relevant. ongoingpermanent and home continuous on the new exchanges reader’s between many different users.17 In this involved in its spread.20 We may wonder way, bookswapper.de has similarities to theto what ‘mediated extent rereadersla tionships’ can commune of those the continuous copying and sharing of with and through their digital e-books, but evidence—from Instagram images de system of sharing physical books of reading devices posed next to shieldsdigital files; the websitehowever, from the bookswapper.any question steaming mugs of coffee, to scannable or conversation about potentially QR codes for out-of-copyright books on illegal activity. shows that e-books t is no wonder that notProject only Gutenberg— can be in this environment, shared but, in fact, are Iwith e-books so already being shared tightly shackled, it in unexpected ways, has been questioned they‘So far, are e-books neither by readers interested whether the e-book have been dead; in spreading this will ever be able to to be shared like medium for their own possess cultural and purposes. The limited symbolic value similar objectsany other, allowed nor spreadability of the to that of the material valuable symbols digital book and all the book.18 As Jenkins has cultural implications for those who it entails may simply So come in contact be part of our current far,noted, e-books ‘if ithave doesn’t 19been transitional phase of spread, it’s dead’. pains resulting from a shareddead; they like areany neither other, with them.’ gradualthe book: shift the to growing digital norobjects valuable allowed symbols to be for those who media. History reminds us that physical come in contact with them. Without books were once locked in chains, and this spreadability, which should be what we are experiencing now might simple for digital media, e-books are be the e-book in chains. limited in the ways they can become a
1 Daedalus 2 modelR. Darnton, was only ‘What ever Is intended the History to beof Books?’,applied to the life, cycle111:3 of (1982), the printed pp. 65-83, book. thereIbidem p. 66. Although it continues to be a valuable tool in the digital age, it should be noted that Darnton’s , p. 67. 157
TXT_2017-18_FinalDocument_V4.indd 157 30/08/2018 10:23:10 L. Howsam, Old Books and New Histories: An Orientation to Studies in Book and Print Culture 3 4 Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture(Toronto/ Buffalo/ London: University of Toronto Press, 2006), p. 31. IbidemH. Jenkins, S. Ford & J. Green, (New York/ London: New York University, 2013), pp. 291–292. 5 Ibidem, p. 1. 76 , p. 3.
wantOn this, to or the simply website cannot says: buy ‘For new all books those all expats the time. or Forjust all lovers those of who English have booksrun out who of space return to putfrustrated all the booksfrom flea they markets own. For where all those English people books there are is nowalways a place rare. to For meet all and those swap who English don’t
books8 for free.’ Bookswapper.de, ‘bookswapper.de - swap English books for free’,
9Sociotechnical Look at User Acceptance of E-Books’, , 21:3 (2010), pp. 47–57, there p. 53. According to § 903 and § 929 of the German Civil Code (BGB). Bundesministerium der Justiz und10 für Verbraucherschutz, ‘German Civil Code BGB’,
13Buch erleichtern’. Author’s translation. , pp. 36–37. 2018).The New York Times, ‘Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle – NYTimes.com’,
16pp. 651–669.
17 Bookswapper.de, ‘Bookswapper FAQ - all about tokens books how to swap books and use this manysite’,
19 Van der Weel, ‘e-Roads and i-Ways’, p. 54. Henry Jenkins, ‘If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead (Part Three: The Gift Economy and Commodity Culture)20 Howsam, — OldHenry Books Jenkins’, and New
p. 31.
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