← Back to home About biblocal

Books belong to everyone.
We're just helping them get around.

A community project to put books back in circulation, one shelf at a time.

The Short Version

What is biblocal?

A free tool for sharing the books you already own. Build your shelf, lend and borrow locally, and let good ideas make the rounds. No algorithms pushing bestsellers. No fees. Just books doing what books do.

🌱

Community-owned

No investors. No ads. No data harvesting. Just a thing we built because we wanted it to exist.

🔓

Open source

The code is on GitHub. Fork it, improve it, run your own. Ideas want to be shared.

🏘️

Hyper-local

The next book you borrow is probably within walking distance. Go get it. Stay for coffee. Remember what that's like.

A Small Request

Help us spread the word

biblocal only works if people use it. We don't have a marketing budget—we have you. If this thing resonates, here's how you can help:

1

Tell a reader

Think of one person who'd love this. Text them. That's it. Personal recommendations beat everything.

2

Share it somewhere

Post about it. Tweet it. Put it in your book club's group chat. Wherever readers gather.

3

Add your bookstore

Know an indie bookshop that should be on here? Add it. They'll thank you. We'll thank you.

4

Build with us

Can code? Design? Write? Have opinions about metadata? We're on GitHub. Pull requests welcome.

The Longer Version

Why we built this

We kept having the same experience: finishing a book, desperate to talk about it, and having no one to talk to. Meanwhile, that same book sat on a shelf, waiting to be lent out.

Libraries are wonderful but limited. Bookstores are great, but the books only travel one way. Social media is... social media. We wanted something simpler: a way to see what the people around us are reading, and maybe borrow that book we've been hunting for.

So we built it. No venture capital, no growth hacking, no "disruption." Just a tool for readers, built by readers.

It only works if people use it. That's where you come in.

"A room without books is like a body without a soul." — Cicero. A neighborhood without book-sharing is just a collection of strangers.

Ready to put your shelf to work?

Build your shelf. Mark what you'd lend. The books will do the rest.

Get Started