LibriVox, however, was a site I could sink my teeth into because it had podcasts of books, short stories, and poems: wahoo! Maybe it was just because I had been thinking more about podcasts recently, but I was jazzed and downloaded several short stories -- Poe, Twain, Anderson -- some of my favorite classics.
Following links and poking around I came across Fried Beef Tech's Best Places to Get Free Books - The Ultimate Guide (www.friedbeef.com/best-places-to-get-free-books-the-ultimate-guide). This is where I came across my favorite free book resource which, oddly enough, wasn't all that technological at all. It was Book Crossing (http://bookcrossing.com), a site dedicated to the pursue of recycling books by leaving them in public places to be discovered, read, and passed on by others. What makes this site so intriguing is that books are registered, released, and tracked! Registered members release books and can follow them as they move around the globe. Each book is given a unique registration number (a BCID#) and whoever finds the book can go to the site, make a log entry for the book, and send it on its way. I was so excited about this that I created information stickers for a few books and released them into the wild on my daily walk. This method of sharing books is a brilliant way to reuse them and to share thoughts. Additionally, it has some of the same appeal as geocaching (www.geocaching.com) because it feels burying treasure. There is also a treasure hunt component because members can search for books left by local or GPS coordinates! Somehow, I'm going to use this in my classroom this year. It might just be one assignment where kids bring in a book, register it, and leave it. I don't know -- but I have a whole summer to think about a fun way to incorporate this concept into my classroom.
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