Scott Bush

Last time I checked, when you wanted a book you bought or borrowed one. You never rented one. You didn’t have to; that’s what the library was for. So I had to check the date when I came across a story about Paperspine in the business section of the Seattle P.I. a few days back—it had to be April Fool’s Day. But it wasn’t and this story is true: you can see it yourself.

Touted as the “Netflix for books” by the witless writer, the story describes how a Microsoft project manager on leave started an online book rental company. For between $10 and $25 a month you can have books delivered to you in the mail, returned the same way in a postage-paid mailer when you’re done. I kept reading, looking for the bit where the writer would point out you can get books for free at the library. To my astonishment, the L-word was never mentioned. Here’s a scenario I imagined:

Scene: a plush corner office in a downtown high rise. A venture capitalist in a powersuit sits at his desk looking over a one-page business plan. Dustin Hubbard, more casually dressed (he worked at Microsoft, after all) is shown in.

VC - “Mr. Hubbard, thanks for coming in. I normally wouldn’t take the time to meet with you but I simply had to know whether this” (he shakes the paper in front of him) “is true.”

H - “Oh yes! It’s like Netflix, but for books! You can chose online, then we send–”

VC - “Yes, yes, I read it. I’m not an idiot; I know how it would work. Tell me, who’s your competition?”

H - “Well, the online booksellers, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, are near our space but they’re not the primary competition. We feel that traditional brick-and-mortar booksellers are the real competition, but we have plans to—”

VC - “Wait, wait, wait. What about libraries. You can go in and get books for free, keep’em for weeks. Doesn’t cost a cent. Why would someone actually pay a monthly fee to get what they can have for free? Actually, they already pay for it through taxes… why would they pay twice for books?”

H - “Uh… well, um, you see… in today’s busy world some people… like, uh, soccer moms and executives, see… they can’t get to libraries. That’s it. So, they pay a small fee for the convenience of getting books delivered. It’s a great idea! Like printing money!”

You can see my point. Sure, you could argue that it’s beneficial to not have to go to the library and browse, or that it’s convenient to choose books on a website when a library might not be open. But libraries are a cornerstone of our democratic society, delivering information to everyone equally. Not to mention the community that’s fostered at a library: classes, plays, meetings, etc. If your life is so busy you can’t stop by the library to check out a few books then how in the hell are you going to find time to read them, even if they do come in the mail?

This is an example of what’s wrong with (some) people today. They’d rather drop $20 a month for the privilege to have rented books on their nightstands than to, I don’t know, say give $20 a month to literacy programs. I’m all for entrepreneurial endeavors but I just can’t get behind this one. Oh, and realized that this hare-brained idea has been tried before (apparently with some success) at bookswim.com and booksfree.com.