An eighth swap site has set themselves up to integrate with LibraryThing—this time with a twist: Bookswapper.de is for Germans—you need to have a German address—to swap books in English.

I think it’s a great idea. For someone like me, living near a good library and two or three good bookstores, swapping doesn’t necessarily make that much sense. When I weigh the mailing and bother costs against the costs of buying or borrowing a book, I usually choose the latter. But it would make a lot of sense for, say, French books, which can’t be found near me.* By catering to residents of Germany (Germans and a lot of expats) who read English, Bookswapper makes easy the satisfying of wants that otherwise would take a lot of effort to satisfy.

About the site, the creators, Kata and Resi write:

“The makers of bookswapper.de are two real people, not some corporation. And bookswapper.de wasn’t born in an office building but in our home, on a sofa, beneath overflowing bookshelves.”

Amen to that.

Note: The original rules didn’t anticipate a site like this, so I’ve decided to list Bookswapper.de second in LibraryThing.de and last in all other LibraryThings.

PS: I fixed a bug that was preventing LibraryThing from seeing everything our swap-site partners had. Numbers have jumped!

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