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Interviews
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Raquel Carlus is a bookcrosser since August, 2003, which turns her into one of the most veteran of Barcelona. It does not seem like a long time, but it is necessary to consider that bookcrossing was born in April, 2001 in the USA and that the first experiences in Barcelona date back to February, 2003. RaquelC, as she is known to the rest of bookcrossers, has "liberated" nearly 70 books and has "hunted" another 40 - bookcrossing has its own vocabulary, translated literally from English: "release", "hunt"-. As RaquelC explains, at the beginning of June the mass media started being interested in it and thanks to that aftereffect there was an important increase of new members. The time will say if it is a question only of a fad or if it turns into an original and altruistic, new way to distribute books.What is bookcrossing?Bookcrossing is a movement that was born with the will to turn the world into a global library. It was designed by a North American, Ron Hornbaker, in April, 2001. The members - or bookcrossers – communicate with each other by means of the web page Bookcrossing Spain.
At first, the people who sign up do it anonymously, since the web only asks for a name, the age and the city. Nevertheless, the bookcrossers are accustomed to being people with related interests and those who want meet a couple of times a month. One of these times is official in the whole world: every second Tuesday of every month the bookcrossers of the world meet in their respective cities. But those of Barcelona also meet extra-officially the last Friday of every month. Our meeting places are usually Baguetina Catalana of Via Augusta 62 - that is an official bookcrossing place- or the Mauri bar in Provença-Aribau.
Where should one start if they wish to commence being a bookcrosser?
The only thing that they have to do is to enter in bookcrossing.com, choose a nickname and register. From here they can take part in the activities that they want. They can simply register for books, ask other bookcrossers who have books registered in their bookstores - every bookcrosser has an assigned bookstore where it is registered and offers their books - or can go and hunt, that is to say, when you liberate a book you indicate on the web page in what place you have done it so that this way other bookcrossers would be able to go to hunt it. Also you have the option to take part what we call "controlled liberations": the bookrings and bookrays.
What are they? Let's suppose that there is a book in which different people are interested in. Those that possess it, offer it in the forum of the web page saying: "I do a bookring". During some time people can send "pm" (private messages) to this person and sign up for bookring. When the bookring closes, the book is passed on to the people who are on the list until reaching the last one. Then this person must return it to the owner. Bookray is exactly the same but the difference is that the last person liberates the book.
If someone on the street finds a book, would do they have to do?
When you register a book, you must mention the title, the author and ISBN; and automatically the web creates its BCID, which is like the ID of the book, a unique and unrepeatable number that will only have that book. Who has the book must give a label to the book (they can be taken from a pdf format from the web and print it at home) and write the BCID of the book. This way, the person who finds the book – be it a bookcrosser or not – what they should do is to enter the web and to introduce the BCID. If it happens, automatically the card of the book will appear with all its history and will be able to make any comment they want, explaining where one has found it or whatever. That is called a "journal entry". The one who liberated the book receives a particular automated e-mail informing them that the book has been hunted. Thus it is possible to follow the track of the book. There have cases of books that I liberated in Barcelona and that have ended in Panama. For example, one of the books that I liberated right now is in Portugal. I gathered it from the tree of Yago and while a person of Portugal was reading it he asked me for it and I sent it to him.
What is the Yago tree?
It is a mythical place between the bookcrossers of Barcelona. It is a banana of Barcelona; it is in just Villarroel-Consell de Cent in front of the Library of Catalonia and has a hole in his crust. One day one of the more veteran bookcrosser´s, Yago, decided to use this tree as point of bookcrossing. Obviously the books can be liberated at any place. There are official points but they can be liberated in a cashier, a bank, a café... Wherever. He decided to do it inside the tree. The idea caught on deeply and it has turned into a mythical place inside Barcelona up to the point of which today, for example, at the meet-up (bookcrossers meeting) a person came come specifically from Valencia that tomorrow will leave a book in the tree of Yago. It´s almost a place of pilgrimage.
In parallel, for the people of Madrid their mythical place is the Orient square. Often what happens is that those of Madrid send us books by mail so that we liberate them in the tree of Yago, and we send others to them so that they do it in the Orient square.
Also does it happen that someone "hunts" a book and simply leaves it on the shelves of their home...
Well yes, things are the way they are. The negative part of the experience is that 80% of the books get lost. It is a very high number but, in spite of that, the people that are in this agree that the effort is worthwhile even though 20% remains. For us the most important thing of bookcrossing is not the books, but the people that you meet. They are the super nice and super open people with interests similar to yours, and very tolerant. Also we organise other activities: last October we did a gymkhana in Ciutadella Park and already we are organising other one for March 21 based on " The Shade of the Wind ", which is a book that we all like much.
Why is the Baguetina Catalana an official point of bookcrossing? Does a convenience exist?
No, the reason is that two of the most active members of bookcrossing are employed at Baguetina Catalana and they convinced the managers to give us a completely free space in which we can meet and liberate books. Also the one who wants can come and read and drink a coffee peacefully. The bookcrossing points of Barcelona do not charge, they are completely disinterested in that, and altruistically they have offered their space for this cause. Bookcrossing is a completely altruistic movement, nobody pays for it. Also there are many libraries, like Fort Pienc or Mil•lenària de Sant Cugat. Soon the Central Library of Gavà will open and some other institutes have also created official points of bookcrossing.
Have you had any conflict with the SGAE? Some complaint from a writer or a publishing house?
No, this is a question that is always asked and one day it had been affirmed that we had problems, but we never have, neither with authors or with publishing houses or with anybody. In fact, I myself am an editor and there are many bookcrossers related to the publishing world. I understand that many people are wary, but a study has been done in the whole world and it has been demonstrated that a bookcrosser buy more books than those who are not. Sometimes there is the one who buys two books, one for keeps and other to liberate it. Sincerely, I think to say that an experience such as bookcrossing goes against the literature and publishing world is like saying that the libraries are against reading; it makes no sense. Anything that encourages reading cannot be against publishing houses.
What place does Barcelona have within the bookcrossers´ city?
Barcelona is the city in Spain with more bookcrossers, although Madrid is close by. At present we are approximately 2,000, coming to about 3,000. Catalonia is the community where there are more bookcrossers. In Spain we are approximately 10,000 and in the whole world there are more than 200,000, the majority in the USA. If I am not wrong, Spain is in sixth place of the world, and right now the target that we have for the next months is reaching the Italians, who are ahead of us by only a thousand members.
How many books are liberated daily in Barcelona?
There are no statistics, is difficult to calculate because normally more copies are liberated in weekends than during week. But, more or less, I would say that in a month between 50 and 100 books. Other statistics do exist: the country in which more books are liberated is the USA; the profile of the bookcrosser belongs to a person of approximately 31 years, at a medium - high cultural level. We must bear in mind that Internet knowledge is basic. Also, the main web page is in English. Another interesting statistics is that 86 % of bookcrossers are women. It must not come as surprise that we live in a country where it has been demonstrated that the women read more than the men. What I have to say is that the few men who exist are very good.
Joan Pla i Vivoles :.
Tuesday, 10 February '04
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