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Dear Librarian,

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Dear Librarian- What happens if I get a request on Friday or Saturday (or Sunday!) before the postage change on Monday, and the wrapper prints out with the “old” postal rate on it? What do I do to be sure that the package has enough postage on it? –Worried in Worthington

Dear Worthy,

Don’t worry - you’ll just have to pay a little extra attention for a few days. Remember that anything you mail on Monday or after must have postage that satisfies the NEW postal rates. Anything you mail before Monday can have the OLD postal rate postage on it. So if you get a request on Friday or Saturday before the rates change, you should be sure to mail the books on Friday or Saturday, using the old postage rate. If you have to mail on Sunday, you should use the NEW postal rate - because packages mailed on Sunday (for example, put into a blue mailbox on Sunday) will not enter the mailstream until Monday, and on Monday the new postal rates will apply.

Dear Librarian- OMG the flu is scary! Did you read The Hot Zone? Is it safe to mail to and from strangers? Why doesn’t the government talk about the US mail as a risk factor for getting swine flu? OMG OMG OMG –Caffeinated in Carson City

Dear Caffy,

While influenza is not Ebola virus (as described in The Hot Zone), you don’t want to get it if you don’t have to! If you are careful to wash your hands frequently and well (using soap), avoid touching your face, eyes, nose or mouth while out and about, and stay away from anyone who is coughing or sneezing, your risk of getting this recent strain of influenza appears to be small. No one is talking about the mail as a risk factor because mail is not a risk factor. Yes, if someone with the flu were to sneeze wetly onto your mail and then hand it to you, that could be a risk. But the influenza virus does not live very long on surfaces, especially in warm weather. If you are very concerned, you can be sure to leave your mail in the mailbox for 2-3 hours before bringing it in. Reasonable precautions will keep you safe, Caffy. Hey, have you ever tried herbal tea? Just a thought!

COMING SOON:

The Twitter background contest beginning May 7th - submit your designs, and vote on the submissions, on TwitterBackgroundsGallery.com
Postage increase May 11th…the new rates will be in the PBS system, and in the Help Center, on the 11th.

Tags: Members, Printable Postage, Shipping Books & USPS
Posted in Dear Librarian, From Our Members | No Comments »

Dear Librarian,

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

Dear Librarian- I got an offer of a book on my Wish LIst and then I got a Personal Message from the other member, saying it is an ARC and asking if I minded getting an ARC. What’s an ARC? What if I don’t want it? Should I click “Cancel” on the request?–Flummoxed in Florida

Dear Flo,

An ARC = Advanced Reader Copy. ARCs (also known as Uncorrected Proofs and Review Copies) are not permitted for swapping here. Actually, each time a member posts a book she or he is asked to confirm that the book is not an ARC. We don’t allow ARCs because they are not the “final” copy of books - changes can be made before the final version is printed. Some members will post their ARCs anyway in violation of the rules — if they do this and send the book out, they have to refund the credit if the requestor asks (and the requestor does NOT have to send the ARC back!). So posting ARCs, just like posting any unpostable book, is not a wise thing to do!

If someone posts a book that is on your Wish List and then tells you in a PM that it is an unpostable copy and you don’t want the unpostable copy, you should say “Please do not send this book to me” in your Personal Message but still click the button on your account to accept the offer - this is the only way to stay on the Wish List for the book. The SENDER needs to cancel in this situation, so that you stay on the Wish List. (The sender should not repost the book after cancelling, obviously.)

ARCs and other unpostables can be swapped in the Book Bazaar Discussion Forum or offered as “freebie incentives” to request books from a bookshelf. So they can still be exchanged here; it is just that they must not be posted to PBS Bookshelves. All books posted to bookshelves must meet swapping criteria. You can find new homes for your unpostables using the Book Bazaar - the items can be described in the Book Bazaar and members will know what they are getting. The Book Bazaar is in the main list of Discussion Forums, accessible under Community at the top of any page on the site.

Dear Librarian- I got my empty wrapping back for a book I mailed, along with a “sorry” note from USPS. Does this mean someone in the Post Office stole the book? What do I do now? — Stumped in Sweetwater

Dear Sweetie,

We’re sorry that this happened! No, it is exceedingly unlikely that anyone stole the book. Sometimes wrapping can tear and the book can fall out. Take a look at your packaging. If you used an envelope, was it taped down tight around the book, with no flaps to catch in postal machines? If you used a PBS Wrapper, did you use tape to reinforce the corners and seams of the package? Not that this situation always is attributable to wrapping inadequacies; even the best-wrapped package can fall afoul of the mighty USPS machines, but your chances of a mishap are greatly lessened if you wrap well. You can read about this in the Help docs on wrapping in the Help Center. If you are using other wrapping besides the PBS wrapper (envelope, padded mailer, brown paper, etc) you can place the “information for the receiver” inside the book itself. This can increase the odds of your book being “reunited” with its packaging, or being sent on to the requestor, even if the package gets ripped open.

Now that the book has been separated from the packaging, it most probably is lost. USPS may recover it - but if they do, they should send it back to you. The requestor should not have to wait for the book to be declared “lost” before she or he gets credit back to try to get another copy. If you get a notice of loss (or the empty wrappings for a book) back in the mail, let the requestor know in a Personal Message, and then contact us and ask us to cancel the transaction, as explained in the Help doc “USPS lost the book I sent” in the Help Center. When we cancel, either the request will be passed to a new sender (if there are more copies in the system), or the book will go onto the requestor’s Wish List and she or he will get credit back.

If you wrap well, this will be extremely unlikely to happen again!

COMING SOON:

Cool stuff…we’re always working on cool stuff. But you knew that.

Tags: ARC, How to Wrap a Book, Members, Shipping Books & USPS
Posted in Dear Librarian, From Our Members, Newsletter | No Comments »

Dear Librarian

Monday, March 9th, 2009

Dear Librarian- I worry about the authors–your website promotes swapping and not buying books. How are the authors to survive? — Worried in Waltham

Dear Walt,

We do understand your concerns! We love authors too and we don’t want their income to be compromised. So we are glad to tell you that we have many authors who are members, and who love PBS. They have explained to us that PaperBackSwap is a great way for an author to find his or her public - members who would not take a chance and buy an unknown author will request unknown authors’ books here, since the investment is only a credit and that can be regained by re-swapping the book. In this way, members find new authors to love, and are more likely to buy their books in the future (we all know there are some books you just can’t wait for!). We have heard from many members, telling us that they have found new favorites here; and from many authors, thanking us for this way to get their books out to readers. We think of PBS as kind of like a library - just a huge one, with no “due dates” to return the books you get. It’s not a way to replace bookselling, but a great way for readers to get books and “meet” authors they might otherwise never have encountered.

Dear Librarian- I recently moved to a small town and was saddened to leave behind the used bookstores of the city. Then I found paperback swap. I love it - I can get my used books (and for less than I was paying in the city). I tell everyone about this site and the service you provide for us. — Rural Reader

Dear Roo,

Thanks for sending this message in! We are so glad the club is working to get books for you. This is another reason why authors love PBS - because it opens up a world of books to so many who might otherwise be cut off! A lot of America is still rural; not everyone has a bookstore or even a library nearby. We are humbled by letters like yours, Roo, which remind us that PaperBackSswap is playing a really big part in some of our members’ lives. It’s wonderful what the internet has made possible, isn’t it?

A whole lotta tweeting goin’ on. Follow PBS news on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/paperbackswap

Tags: Members, Twitter
Posted in Dear Librarian, From Our Members | No Comments »

DEAR LIBRARIAN: Newsletter - February 2009

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

Dear Librarian- I am not getting my Wish List notifications. I just get the email that I didn’t respond and the wish list book isn’t available anymore! Why is this happening?? — Confused in Carson City

Dear Connie,

This means that your email provider has been told not to send some categories of PBS emails to you. You were not necessarily the one who told your email provider this! Someone else could have done this, by marking PBS email as spam in their account.

If someone marks a PBS email as spam, it affects the delivery of PBS emails to all other members who use the same email provider. This is because marking a PBS email as spam tells the email provider “I have no relationship with PBS, I never gave them permission to contact me and they provide no method for me to stop receiving their emails.” So the email provider (AOL, hotmail, yahoo, etc) thinks PBS is a spammer, and they will blacklist PBS emails for all AOL/hotmail/yahoo/etc. users.

What can you do about this? First, you should be sure to add the PBS auto-email addresses (librarian@paperbackswap.com and noreply@paperbackswap.com) to your email account’s address book. This will really help!

You can also be sure never to mark any PBS emails as spam yourself; some members do this just to get the emails out of view, instead of deleting them. But you can control the emails you receive from PBS from your Account Settings:

Use the email settings in your Account Settings to opt out of categories of email that you don’t want to receive.
If you don’t want the Newsletter, unsubscribe to it in your account settings.
If you ‘watched’ a topic and you don’t want the ‘watched-topic’ emails, unwatch the topic to stop them from coming in!
If you subscribed to the Daily Digest or Daily Wish List and don’t want them anymore, unsubscribe in your account settings.

We are also pro-active about this. We have set up email feedback loops with the major email providers, to avoid getting blacklisted when members mark PBS mail as spam. So we are alerted when a member marks one of our emails as spam. If a member does this once he or she will get an email from us; if a member does this repeatedly we are required by the email provider to suspend/close the member’s account so that he or she will not get any more emails from us! And if a member marks our “Don’t Mark PBS Emails as Spam” emails as spam, this will also cause the account to be suspended/closed.

In this way, we are trying to keep the lines of communication open, so our members get the system auto-emails that are necessry to manage their accounts.
Dear Librarian- I heard about a new law going into effect this month, which requires anyone selling items for children to test them for lead content! Does this affect books swapped here (or DVDs at SwapaDVD, or CDs at SwapaCD)? How can we all test our books for lead? –Frantic in Foxborough

Dear Fran,

This law will not affect us, happily. The CPSC sent out a press release on 1/8/2009. The relevant excerpts follow:

“The new law requires that domestic manufacturers and importers certify that children’s products made after February 10 meet all the new safety standards and the lead ban. Sellers of used children’s products, such as thrift stores and consignment stores, are not required to certify that those products meet the new lead limits, phthalates standard or new toy standards…The new safety law does not require resellers to test children’s products in inventory for compliance with the lead limit before they are sold.” (emphasis added)

You can visit the CPSC website at http://www.cpsc.gov for more information, or call the following numbers for more information:

CPSC Recall Hotline: (800) 638-2772
CPSC Media Contact: (301) 504-7908

So our swapping clubs should not have a problem because of the new law, we’re glad to say.

Dear Librarian - My children like to look for books on PBS with me. When I log in, the Member Homepage comes up and sometimes there are book images on it that I am not comfortable having my children see! Is there a way NOT to show all the images in the Books Posted Today sliding display? –Bothered in Belleview

Dear Belle,

Yes! You can set your homepage to exclude any genres you like in the sliding displays. This option is available in your Account Settings, in My Account. For example, you can exclude all but children’s books, and this will keep your Homepage “kid-safe” for browsing.

COMING SOON:

A couple of the Discussion Forums will be go back to “members only” this week…

Tags: Email from PBS, Members
Posted in Dear Librarian, From Our Members, Newsletter | No Comments »

DEAR LIBRARIAN, Newsletter - January 2009

Thursday, January 1st, 2009

Dear Librarian-Please please please please do NOT send out emails reminding us to mail on the weekends or on holidays. The post office is CLOSED!! - Aggrieved in Altoona

Dear Aggie,

Please please please please do not select a mail-by date that is on a weekend or holiday, when you accept a request. The post office is closed!

Seriously- the PBS system works on calendar days. We do mean to put some alerts into the system to tell members when they are choosing postal holidays as their mailby dates (and to prevent doing that), but we haven’t been able to get to that item on our (oh-so-long) To Do list yet. In the meantime, remember that reminder emails won’t go out if the book is marked mailed on time; to prevent getting any of these, the sender needs to keep postal holidays and the like in mind when choosing the mail-by date at the time of accepting a book. You have a grace period after the mailby date you choose - just be sure that you can actually mail before the deadline, and you will not have any problems with this.
Dear Librarian- Can foreign-language books be listed under their own section so we can find them easily? - Polyglot in Peoria

Dear Polly,

We work with a database that is compiled elsewhere, and we are limited to their genres/subgenres. But there are a lot of ways to find foreign-language books on the site. And there are a lot of ways to help foreign-language-seeking requestors find the books they are looking for! For example:

Genre search:
- Use the Book Browser to search for Literature and Fiction > World Literature , choosing the geographic area of interest as a sub-subgenre.
Libres en Espanol:
- The database does have a genre for Libros en Espanol - this is one of the “popular genres’ in the list on the Browse by Genre area. To do this search, click Search at the top of the site, then click the Browse By Genre tab on the Search page, and you will see the Popular Genres list.
Book Tags:
- Many books in foreign languages have been tagged by members with a corresponding Book Tag. An easy way to find these tagged books is to tag a book you know is in Russian (for example) with the tag “Russian language”. Then just click that tag you just created on the book listing to see all of the listings that bear the same tag. This is an excellent, club-useful implementation of Book Tags. You can read more about Book Tags in the Help Center.
Change the title using the Edit Book Data link:
- If you have a book in a foreign language, help others find the book by adding the language information to the title, in parentheses : “(Lithuanian Language Edition)” after the title will make it very easy for requestors to know that your book is in Lithuanian! You can use the Edit Book Data link at the bottom of any page on the site to submit these title amendments to our Data Correction Volunteers who will need to review the information before it can be approved and added to the site.
Keyword search:
- Put “French language” (for example) into the search space at the top of the site. Any books that have this phrase in the book description information or in the title will be found using this search.
Publisher search:
- If you go to a listing for a book in the language you seek - click the publisher name to see all of the other books from that same publisher.

We hope this helps you Polly! We wish you des echanges joyeux, los intercambios felices, das glückliche Tauschen, as trocas felizes, de gelukkige uitwisselingen and gli scambi felici!

Tags: Email from PBS, Genres, Members
Posted in Dear Librarian, From Our Members | No Comments »

DEAR LIBRARIAN: Newsletter - December 2008

Monday, December 1st, 2008

Dear Librarian-I love Printed Postage! Can’t believe I ever did without it. My printer ran out of ink though and I had already downloaded the wrapper with postage - couldn’t print it. I have put new cartridges in my printer - will I be re-charged when I reprint the wrapper? - Nervous in Newton

Dear Newt,

Nope! You won’t be re-charged. If you ever need to reprint a wrapper for any reason, just start over by clicking Print Wrapper on the request, be sure that you choose the postage option on the Wrapper Settings page, and print. You can confirm that you are not re-charged by looking in your Money Registry, linked from the top of your My Account main page.
Dear Librarian- I posted a book incorrectly - I used the hardcover listing when I had the paperback, and the ISBNs were the same so I was confused - and now I need to refund the credit. Is there an easy way to do this? -Careless in Coventry

Dear Carrie,

Yes, you can just go to the swap in your Transaction Archive (linked from your My Account main page) and click the Request Details link on the right, then scroll down a little on the details page and click the Give Refund button.

We are sorry you had this confusion when posting your book - because publishers sometimes re-use ISBNs and it is necessary for all books to match the listings used to post them (ISBN, title, author and booktype must all match), it is really important to double-check the booktype on the listing preview before clicking to post the book.

If you’re careful to use only listings that match the books you have (see How to Post a Book and Solutions to Common Book Posting Problems, both accessible from the Need Help? tab on the upper right of the Post Books page), you won’t have this problem again!

COMING SOON:

The year 2009! Are you ready? What are your New Year’s Resolutions?

Tags: ISBNs, Members
Posted in Dear Librarian, From Our Members, Newsletter | No Comments »

Books You May Have Missed: Newsletter - November 2008

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

Many of you know Lori G, auntielala-thebookpimp, from the Forums. Her book recommendations get rave reviews. So many members have been helped by reading Lori’s recommendations that we asked her to send us some.

Lori Recommends…Location, Location, Location!

This Side of Married by Rachel Pastan (witty women’s fiction)
The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty (a coming-of-age novel)
Blooming All Over by Judith Arnold (contemporary romance)
The Monk Downstairs by Tim Farrington (literary fiction)
But Inside I’m Screaming by Elizabeth Flock (contemporary fiction)

Tags: Book Recommendations
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DEAR LIBRARIAN: Newsletter - November 2008

Saturday, November 1st, 2008

Dear Librarian–I was totally psyched by the Similarity Index. But then I looked at my Buddies, and no one is more than 10% similar to me! Am I such a freak? Why don’t I have higher similarity to other people? –Outcast in Orlando

Dear Lanny,

Don’t worry! You’re not a freak. Well, you might be, but not because of low Similarity Index numbers :). The Similarity Index is inaccurate if it doesn’t have good data to work with. If you haven’t chosen favorite genres, haven’t rated many books using the star-rating system, and haven’t put a lot of books on your Wish List, then it’s hard for the system to tell who is similar to you!

You can improve the accuracy of the Index by (1) choosing favorite genres on the Member Homepage (you don’t have to choose three- one or two are fine), by (2) putting items on your Wish List and (3) by rating books with the star rating system.

Number 3 above is super-powerful - the more books you rate with 1-5 stars, the more likely it is that you will rate the same books that someone else has rated. Giving the same books the same number of stars is really the most accurate measure of your similarity to another member. So turn to the stars to find your reading soul-mates! They’re out there, we just know it.

Don’t forget, you can see your similarity on ANY viewable profile -not just on Buddies. You can view a member’s profile by clicking his or her highlighted nickname anywhere it appears on the site.

Dear Librarian–I keep my books in a bunch of different places, and I have been using the Book Tags to help me find the books when they are requested. I have been tagging books “box 1″, “box 2″, “Living Room Bookshelf”, etc. The problem is that when a request comes in the Tags don’t even show on the pending request! Is there a better way to do this than using the Book Tags? –Cluttered in Colorado

Dear Rad,

Yes! There are two much better ways to do this: (1) the Book Journal (which you can read about in the Help Center - it costs 8 dollars per year to subscribe) will show the “space” to which you have assigned a book, right on the request on your account page. (2) the Book Notes - you can apply a note to any book on your bookshelf and that note will follow the book wherever it goes; you just have to mouse over the note to read the text. You can read about using the Book Notes in the Help Center (they are also described in What’s New linked from the very top of any page on the site).

Both of these are more useful options than Book Tags for information relevant only to you, that you want to show on an active request.

Dear Librarian– Well, then, what are the Book Tags good for? Should we all be clicking the “R” on tags like this, to report them as inappropriate?

Good question, Rad. No, you shouldn’t click the R on tags that are clearly “personal”.

Personal tags are tags that have meaning only for their creators (initials, numbers, “save for Joanne” etc). You can leave these alone - even though Notes are often a better way to manage this information, personal tags are not confusing or misleading, and if left alone they will disappear eventually, since other tags will be applied to those books and only the 10 most commonly-used tags are shown on any listing.

The Tags that SHOULD get the R click are the tags that are misleading: tags that describe book condition (”yellowed pages” or “ex-library book” or “some underlining”). Why? These tags do not apply to all copies of the book and do not help other members know more about the copy that is “next up” for requests. Note also that underlining is not permitted in books swapped at PBS (see the Help Center Book Conditions Guidelines for the exception to this rule for textbooks). You can read more about “personal”, “inappropriate” and “club-useful” tags in the Help Center (or click What’s New at the top of any page on the site and read “Book Tags”).

So you can use these personal Tags, Rad. Members can remove them (if enough members click on enough of your Tags you could wake up and find them gone!), so for personal information like this, Book Notes are safer - and more effective for your purposes! Plus, they’re really keen-looking, aren’t they? We can’t stop looking at them!
COMING SOON:

The unification of this wonderful nation. It’s time to remember that U.S. = US, not Us versus Them. We Americans have so much to be proud of already; yet if we all pull together, despite our differences of opinion, the country’s finest hours are yet to come!

Tags: Book Tags, Members, Similarity Index
Posted in Dear Librarian, From Our Members, Newsletter | No Comments »

TIPS & TRICKS: Newsletter - October 2008

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

It’s that time again. The time of year when the weather can get wet - rainy or snowy - along the route your books will take to their new homes. Help them get there safe and dry by using an inner layer of plastic in the package. A clean plastic grocery bag, the wrapping from a roll of paper towels - it’s all good. Tape it well around the book (don’t tape directly TO the book!) and put the external wrapping around that. You can also use some clear packing tape over the name/address on the label so it doesn’t smear if it gets rained on. Nothing’s sadder than getting a wet book - except knowing how easily it could have been avoided!

Read before you click! If you get a request with Requestor Conditions on it, remember to read it carefully before clicking to decline. We get some anguished messages from members whose requests were declined because the sender misinterpreted them. Declining means you will not be able to send that book to that requestor - she will not be able to re-request it from you. So please be sure that you really do not want to send the book to her before you click “My Book Does Not Meet Conditions”. You can read more in How to Use Requestor Conditions in the Help Center.

Tags: Requestor Conditions, Shipping Books & USPS, Tips & Tricks
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Books You May Have Missed: Newsletter - October 2008

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

Many of you know Lori G, auntielala-thebookpimp, from the Forums. Her book recommendations get rave reviews. So many members have been helped by reading Lori’s recommendations that we asked her to send us some.

Two “Canes” Lori Recommends:

Cane River by Lalita Tademy
Kane & Abel by Jeffrey Archer

A bit o’ Women’s Lit Lori Recommends:

The Magician’s Assistant by Anne Patchett
True & Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson

Tags: Book Recommendations, Members
Posted in From Our Members, Newsletter | No Comments »

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