Re: [Omaha.pm] [pm_groups] What do you do with free books?

[Jay Hannah <jay@jays.net>]

On Sep 9, 2005, at 3:14 PM, Linda L. Julien wrote:
> However, I'm curious about what other groups do with these books when
> they receive them.
>
> Do you keep them in a group library?  If so, how do you arrange access
> for the members, and/or ensure that the books come back when people
> borrow them?

We have 12 books. (Thanks O'Reilly! Yay!) They're all heavily labeled 
the property of Omaha Perl Mongers. We keep them at the store where our 
meetings are held. They're tracked in an online database (w/ a PHP 
interface! gasp! -grin-) where people, theoretically, check them out 
and then eventually return them:

http://library.reboottheuser.com/login.php

I have a couple books checked out personally, they're at my work. If 
anyone wanted them I'd be happy to bring them to meetings and hand them 
over.

> How effective to you think your strategy is?  Does it encourage group
> membership?  Group participation?  Etc.

No one seems to care. No one except me has ever checked out a book, or 
expressed any interest in borrowing them.  A couple of years ago, 
before the tracking database, random people took 3 or 4 books home. I 
didn't track it. I think 2 or 3 of them came back eventually. It's a 
good idea to always keep some sort of list/record, regardless of how 
informal, otherwise everyone involved will likely completely forget and 
the book will go unused forever on some shelf somewhere.

No one has ever taken the time to write a review. Personally, that's 
not my thing and apparently it isn't popular among other Omaha Perl 
geeks either. -grin-  So far O'Reilly doesn't seem to care. I post 
their banner ad, they send a book. I've never taken them up on any 
review offers since I'm not interested in writing one.

No book requests have come from other members of our group, so I've 
ordered the books I want/use/read.

Cheers,

j
Omaha.pm
a sleepy little group