If you're feeling the need to hit refresh on your home library, an online book swap can be just the thing to cure your bookshelf boredom, but finding like-minded readers to share books with can be difficult. Thankfully, there's a website to help you trade books with others. It's called shelf.ly, and it's 100 percent free to use.
Created by Redditor jeffbarge, who has also made shelf.ly companion apps for iOS and Android, the shelf.ly system is pretty easy to navigate. You sign up for a free account using your email address, phone number, and postal code. After verifying your registration, you're free to post the books you have to share. At the time of this writing, shelf.ly users have three pages of titles up for grabs, including Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, My Sister's Keeper, and Little Women.
I requested to borrow My Sister's Keeper from a shelf.ly user in Arizona, twice. Not because the user denied my request, or because I'm a super-annoying person — OK, maybe that — but because nothing really happens when you click the "borrow" button. After mashing it two times, I checked my requests page and, lo and behold, shelf.ly's system had submitted two requests for the Jodi Picoult title on my behalf. I quickly canceled one of them.
Now, we'll wait to see if the Arizona reader approves my request. I assume that, if the book's owner chooses me to receive their copy, the system will put me in touch with them somehow, but it's hard to say for sure. If you're interested to see what happens, and you don't want to wait for my inevitable Twitter update, toss up a few of your own books on shelf.ly and check it out for yourself.
