Dear Members,

Every year it sneaks up on us while we are gardening, finishing out the school year, getting ready for the Fourth of July...  Father's Day!

When I was growing up, I never thought of my Dad as being special.   He went to work every day and came home to us three boys and my Mom.   My brothers and I hardly noticed when people stared at him rolling by in his wheelchair (where polio put him when he was a teenager) - to us he was just Dad.   But as I grow older and face my own relatively minor challenges every day, I begin to see things in a new light, and realize how  special he really was.  Not because of his disability - but because of his abilities.   Thinking of him inspires me to enjoy what I have instead of worrying about what I don't have - to celebrate the many miracles that go into every day on this earth.

Here's to you, Dad!   And to everyone else who reminds us that there is extraordinary in the ordinary all around us. 

Let's all have a wonderful June,

Richard
and the PaperBackSwap Team

NEWS:

Still a few more days left in our Twitter Background Design Contest!   Submit a design for our background for our Twitter profile @paperbackswap here.  The contest ends June 7th.  Winners get cold hard cash, credits, and Swap Money as well as unending glory!  And everyone can vote on the submissions!   For more about how to submit, the prizes, and all the nifty details, check out the PBS Blog. Thanks to TwitterBackgroundsGallery.com for helping us set this up & use their website to run the contest.  

Whatcha hidin'?  ...Wouldn't you like to know!    The soft bookcovers in the Kiosk can keep your reading material private, as well as protect your books and make them easy to hold.  Now in three sizes: Mass Market, Premium Mass Market (= most trade paperbacks) and Hardcover, and a number of different patterns.  Seriously, if you haven't gotten one of these yet, you are missing out!

Cross-Country Champs... Check out the new page of Most Traveled Books under Search at the top of any page on the site.... These are individual copies of books that have been swapped the most times and are still traveling and available to request.  You can see the path each book has taken, and you can also see the most-swapped copies of all time from a link on the still-traveling copies page.  Think of it, each of these books could have had just one reader and then languished on a dusty shelf forever.  Instead, each of them has gladdened the hearts of multiple readers - and the currently-traveling copies are still going strong! 

Father's Day

Look at these books by, for and about dads, currently available to request...

	General Fiction... Look Back All the Green Valley.  Jess Kirkman returns to the North Carolina mountain town of his boyhood to tend to his ailing mother, and clean out his deceased father's workroom. What he discovers there leads him—and the reader—on an unforgettable journey through the secret life of Jess's father, which culminates in a moment of profound mystery... and comedy.
	Memoirs...  Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul.    Tony Hendra, a writer and satirist who was one of the geniuses behind THIS IS SPINAL TAP, shares an inspiring true story about his spiritual journey toward God, in the form of a tribute to the Rev. Joseph Warrilow, a Benedictine monk who lives in a monastery on the Isle of Wight.    A New York Times Notable Book.
	Military History ... Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War.   When Bob Greene went home to central Ohio to be with his dying father, it set off a chain of events that led him to knowing his dad in a way he never had before -- thanks to a quiet man who lived just a few miles away, a man who had changed the history of the world....  Duty is the story of three lives connected by history, proximity, and blood; indeed, it is many stories, intimate and achingly personal as well as deeply historic.
	Business ...Business Dad : How Good Businessmen Can Make Great Fathers (and Vice Versa)  Businessmen with kids often feel trapped between rising expectations at work and at home...there are never enough hours in the day. What's a business dad to do? Tom Hirschfeld, veteran businessman and father of two, addresses the dilemma with surprising insights and sensible solutions....
	Contemporary Fiction... A Father's Affair. What happens to a father when he discovers that he has been infertile all his life? That intriguing question is the starting point of this book. Still reeling from the sudden death of his wife (the one person who could answer his questions), the protagonist, Armin Minderhout, begins a quest to discover the biological father of his thirteen-year-old son. The reader joins him on an extraordinary journey, one in which he is forced to reconsider everything and everyone he has ever believed in...

New Local Chapter Leaders:

• Yin C. - Jessica888  - Northern NJ
• Heidi T - hoopinmama  - Eastern Connecticut
• Evelyn H - starz4unu2171  - Western Connecticut
• Christalle C. - christalle  - Amarillo, TX
• Jennifer K - jen33919 - Ft Myers/Cape Coral, FL
• Beela N. - Cottonwoodrose - Vermillion County, Western IN
• Pat H. - nvhistorybuff - Pahrump, NV
• Wendy S. - shoe - "Pee Dee" region of South Carolina

If you want to be a Local Chapter Leader for PBS, you just need to have a PBS NIckname, a viewable public profile, and some organizational skills...check the Local Chapter Leaders Forum List of Official Chapters to see if your area already has a local Chapter.  If not, and you want to do this, just contact us.  There are no formal guidelines for being a Chapter Leader.  All of the information is in the Local Chapter Leader Discussion Forum topic.    If you are an official Chapter Leader and want us to include your upcoming meetup in the Newsletter, send in a message to us with the date, at least a week before the end of the preceding month.

MEMBER OF THE MONTH

Ellen  (OWNIE)

Votes for Ellen have been coming in for a long time.  Ellen is a frequent forum poster, and she has clearly made an impression there.  Just a few of the comments that accompanied member nominations:

"She is consistently upbeat, friendly, non-critical, non-abrasive... a true ray of sunshine.."

"She is always helpful to new members and she is always diplomatic..."

"In spite of the health problems she and her husband both battle, she is positive and upbeat. She encourages other members and has the most creative and unique threads on the forums."

"She is unfailingly courteous, empathetic, and positive. Just seeing her name appear in a post can put a smile on my face because I know she has something kind (and often amusing) to say..."

DEAR LIBRARIAN

Dear Librarian- I'm a new member and I am anxious about my privacy.  Do you share or sell our personal information?  How can I check to see what information other members can see about me? - Jittery in Jonesboro

Dear Jonesy,

We do not sell or share member information with anyone (if you are getting spam, don't blame us!).  Other members do need access to a working mailing address (which includes a full, real last name) to which to send the books you request, of course, but otherwise your personal information is hidden from others.  You can tightly control your privacy, in your Privacy Controls which are accessible from your Account Settings.  The default settings are pretty private - nothing shows on the site but your first name and last initial, and your PBS nickname if you have chosen one - but in your Privacy Controls you can choose how you want your "identity" to appear on the site, and control every other bit of information shown to the membership.  You can even hide your booklists (Wish List and Bookshelf) from other members - although that would be counterproductive in most cases, Jones, since you want people to see your Bookshelf so they can order from you, and hiding your Wish List means that you won't get any Wish List books posted directly to you by friends on the site (this happens pretty often).  

So if you're smart about what you post in forums and in your profile (it's never wise to share TOO much personal info on the Internet), you shouldn't have anything to worry about!  We have a great group of members and you are bound to make some good friends here. 

Dear Librarian-  Why don't you have the "posting position" of each book on the site, like you do with the Wish List, so we can see where our posted books are in line to get requests?  It would help us decide to donate some books instead of keep them listed - a book that has 60 available copies for example, I would donate instead of post here.  - Curious in Cooperstown

Dear Coop,

Good question!  We do plan to make this information available at some point - but not just as the position in line.   The raw information would not really help members make decisions about when their books might be requested.  Some books move very fast here!  So that book that has 60 copies in the system?  Those 60 copies could be swapped in a month, if it is a popular book.   Not only that, but FIFO does not govern every swap here - if you are a Boxer (= if you are subscribed to Box-O-Books) or if you offer "deals" in the Book Bazaar (2 books for 1 credit, 3 books for 2 credits, etc), your #60 book may be included as part of a Box-O-Books swap, or added in to a deal you are offering, and thus get requested "early".  

We are working on a way to show members the dynamics of a book in the system, to give the raw number some meaning so it is useful and not prone to being misinterpreted.  This programming is pretty tricky; in the meantime, you can't know where your book is in line to get requests - so that leaves a nice opening for a surprise here and there! 

COMING SOON:

• The end of the Twitter background contest - you have until June 7 to submit your designs, and vote on the submissions, on TwitterBackgroundsGallery.com
• New stuff in the Kiosk...just you wait and see!

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