Readers accessing books online

Paul Ramsey is a footballer who loves reading variety of books. Reading is his only addiction he is aware of, says the 19-year-old Rangers FC striker, a small football club at Magomeni, Dar es Salaam.

It can take Ramsey, a high school graduate from Azania, a week to finish reading a 1,000-page book. This means that in a month he is able to read up to four books. However, this has never been a case. Budget constrains do not match with his supersonic and admirable reading speed.

Ramsey is not a professional footballer and he doesn’t have a permanent job, which can guarantee him a monthly pay. He buys a book once in a while. His latest one, and which he has re-read more than thrice, is Donald Trump’s Think Big.

Ramsey would like to exchange the book with a fellow reader who can offer him a book of his interest. This, notwithstanding, has always proved difficult not only to find the person who would be willing to exchange the book but also to find a collection of his favorite genres.

Here’s a solution

Ramsey was introduced to a platform that would help him quench his thirst for reading. He became aware of the platform through a passer-by who was talking through the phone. The man, whom later became Ramsey’s friend, was telling a person on the phone about the platform that would let readers across the city exchange books amongst themselves. It’s called ISwapMyBooks.

On that very day, with his smartphone, Ramsey bought airtime from his service provider’s e-money service and subscribed to an internet bundle. He opened Google and searched for ISwapMyBooks. And it appeared as the first result of the 2,320 results on google.

Ramsey is happy as I can tell from his facial expression, filled with a smile. He follows the link provided by Google. Ready to Swap? It’s the first question Ramsey encounters on the website. Below he finds ‘Find a Book’ section which is followed by two bars: one would let Ramsey select a type of book that he would like to swap; academic, fiction and non-fiction, and the second bar would let him search a book that he would like to swap.

How one swaps

But Ramsey will not be able to swap a book unless he is a registered member. He thus will have to register using his e-mail or Facebook account. Ramsey will be required to complete his profile by offering the needed information like writing his phone number and identifying his location.

Thereafter, Ramsey will have to list at least five books he or she wants to swap with other members, which to him that’s not a problem at all, he has more than ten books that he no longer reads. He lists the five books including of the now US-president, Mr Trump.

For Ramsey to get a book, he browses a library in fiction, non-fiction or academic categories. Ramsey selects E.L James’ 50 Shades Darker and a request is automatically sent to the book owner. The book owner in turn chooses Trump’s Think Big from Ramsey’s collection and then accepts to swap.

The process is completed, and Ramsey receives contact information of the fellow book swapper and agree that anyone will get the book within the coming two days. Ramsey stares at me with a cheesy and gummy smile.

Motivated by reading

ISwapMyBooks, founded in May last year, is a platform that helps people across the country discover new readings and then get the books for free using their old books, or books that they no longer need. Registered members have free access to more than thousands of books. These involve fictitious, non-fictitious and academics books. Registered members can get any book for free by swapping them with other book owners.

“The idea came from our reading culture in our company in which everyone buys one book every month and having done reading we exchange,” says Shafiq Mpanja, 30, who co-founded the platform. “One day it came to my mind that the idea can be expanded to a platform in which not only my co-workers can have access to free books, but everyone who has internet access.”

There are currently more than a thousand books listed in the platform by members. Just a month after the launch, more than 150 books were swapped. Currently, there is an estimate of 500 swaps.

For students, parents

ISwapMyBooks can help parents and students save money on the soaring costs of buying textbooks and course materials. Mpanja, who is a General Manager of Prime Pixels, a digital marketing agency, says that during piloting, the platform was only for academic books.

“We noticed that there’s a huge demand of academic books, people really want to give away books they have and also to get other textbooks. We encourage parents and students to list books they no longer need hence others can benefit.” The feedback, too, from the readership community in the country, has been tremendous, says a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Information Technology from the Dar es Salaam Institute of Technologies Mr Mpanja. “Spending a lot of money every month on bookshops while there is a cheap and affordable means to reading somehow sounds thorny.”

A view from users

Jackson Fute, author and script writer based in Dar es Salaam is one of the hundred others from the readership community who benefits from ISwapMyBooks. The 28-year old writer and resident of Kinondoni says that he got to know of the platform since the early days of inception and has so far swapped five books.

“I use it oftentimes and I think it’s a game changer towards the country’s reading population,” speaks Fute to Success in a telephone interview. “It helped me acquire books that I never thought were available in the country before.”

The idea that most Tanzanians do not like to read books sounds made-up to Steven Moruo, another ardent beneficiary of ISwapMyBooks who dismisses the mostly held belief saying that people do love reading but budget doesn’t allow them.

“Once I was aware of the platform through Twitter, I immediately thought it was a great initiative,” says the 25-year-old tutor at Kigamboni City College who so far has gone up to three swaps. “I like hoary Swahili books which ISwapMyBooks has really helped me since in the past it was difficult to spot them even in the bookshops.”

Books exchanging, friendship making

But Moruo gets more than books from ISwapMyBooks. “I get to connect with people that I never knew before and make friendships with them.” According to him, the whole process of exchanging books in person enriches relations which is a highly sought ingredient for one’s prosperity.

“Reading books is still a problem in our country with a good reason that books are expensive,” says a writer and content creator Dorren Andrew. “ISwapMyBooks helps out on that problem in very affordable and convenient ways.” Ms Andrew, also a lawyer at the National Bank of Commerce, says she is glad that the platform is eventually here as she is now able to get new books on a daily basis.

Taking ISwapMyBooks to the region

The vision of ISwapMyBooks, according to Mpanja, is to promote the reading culture in the country where the culture is not so common to its people. Mpanja and his colleagues are looking forward expanding it to be accessible through mobile phones that have no internet access through USSD command.

“Various stakeholders have been making numerous calls to Tanzanians to embrace reading culture for their own and national betterment,” he says, “but the response has been repeatedly discouraging even among the educated elites using books expensiveness as a pretext. I think iSwapMyBooks offers a perfect solution.”

Mpanja highlights that plans are also underway of expanding and enabling the platform to serve the whole region of East Africa so that more members from the region’s reading community may benefit from it.