Mailing an audiobook? If your audiobook is in a rigid plastic case, remember that those can be cracked by USPS sorting machinery–the discs and cassettes can be ruined too! Protect your audiobook by cushioning it for its journey–a bubble mailer, or bubble wrap inside the outer layer of wrapping, will do the job. Keep your audiobooks playable for many swaps to come!

Clean it up! There is a wave of keep-PBS-beautiful projects taking place on the site. When members browse for books, it really helps when listings are complete and accurate: descriptions and cover images help a lot. So do book reviews.

• For errors in book data, and missing book descriptions, Book Data Correctors Trinity P. (TrinityM) and Sherry N (royaltech) have spearheaded a “data clean-up” project in the Forums. See Trinity’s topic here on using the Edit Book Data link at the bottom of any page on the site. (There are detailed instructions in the Help document If the information on a book listing in the database is incorrect… in the Help Center.)

• For missing cover images: submit these to our Image Approvers using the Upload Book Covers link at the bottom of the site. It’s really easy: contact Sarra B (sarradee) or Beverly P (hockeygal4ever), our Image Collection Co-Coordinators, for guidance if you need it. Check Sherry’s post here for guidance on both image uploading and data correction.

• For book reviews: Angie B (AngieB901) started it, and a whole slew of members have joined in, posting “inappropriate” reviews in a Forum topic so that members can vote thumbs down on them. An “inappropriate” review is one that contains information about the particular copy of the book (its condition), or that indicates the book copy doesn’t match the listing! These members who wrote the reviews didn’t mean any harm–but they’re not helpful reviews for someone deciding whether or not to request the book. The review-rating process will go into effect when we have enough ratings.

Everyone can help–do a little or a lot! You can clean up just the books on your bookshelf, or your Books I’ve Read list. Make sure the information is accurate, that there is a good description of the book (from the back cover), and that you write a review telling what you thought about it. Just this little effort can get your books requested and on to their new homes. Your books will thank you! And so do we.

Look/listen before you click. Remember to check your books before you mark them received. If there is a problem, you won’t be able to record it on the site after you have marked the book received. So flip through your books when they arrive, check your audioCDs for scratches and make sure audiocassettes are playable before you mark them received without a problem. Yes, you can still contact the sender to ask for a credit refund if you discover a problem after the fact–but recording problem transactions in the database allows the system to track poor sending, so that we can intervene and keep book quality high on PBS. Of course, the vast majority of books are received without a problem–this is just a word to the wise.