(Disclaimer: This is not something that is implemented currently, nor do I think that this idea is fully fleshed out, but it is something that genuinely interests me and I think it might be interesting to you all, too.)

This is an idea that I've been throwing around, a little bit in the discord, and a little bit in my own head: What if there was a way people could just gift each other books in the PPC?

This is going to be a bit of a long post. So, bear with me, and please please please if you find anything wrong with this at all, or if you find any way the idea could be improved upon I would love to hear it!

The base idea is this, in a couple steps:
To have a database (perhaps a googledoc?) where people can share books that they own/want to donate, complete with titles, who'd be willing to donate it, and a review. (I'd personally like each book to have a review, and maybe even a tagging system, like "Sci-Fi" or "Fantasy". That'd be really cool, imo.)

So, after the database is there, the people who want books can just send whoever has the book a message, or somehow communicate with them that they'd like the book. Or maybe someone has a book that they really would like to give to someone else! (I have a lot of books which I know certain people would love!)

And once those two people have communicated enough, this is where I'd like to voice and possibly answer a concern. "Are people comfortable with sharing where they live/where their general location is?" And my answer, is that it really depends - some people are open, others aren't - I personally use drop locations, which aren't where I live, but around the general area where I can pick up packages and stuff. For the system to work and hopefully make people more comfortable, those who are interested in sharing books would talk to an established third party within the community. This third party would be the middleman - They would know and not share the information of where people receive books, and would also know where people are sending books from. They would be the only ones who know this information, aside from the sender and receiver, respectively. The sender would send the book to the third party, who would check and see that "yes, this is really the book, and nothing else (unless specified)" and the third party would send it off to the person who wanted the book.

That's probably a really long and convoluted way of explaining what I'd like to have, if this idea ever came to be. A database, a third party, and people willing to give general/specific locations of where they send and receive stuff to the third party.

A couple issues which I've already thought of, and can't really come up with good answers to.

1. Shipping.
That stuff is expensive. Who would be paying to send the books? How would that work out? Maybe determine between the two people?
2. Reliability of the third party.
How do we know that the third party isn't just going to take our books and just vanish disappear? We'd have to establish a person or two who are comfortable with doing this, and who are trusted members of the community.
3. What about people who've been offered books, want to receive them, but are unwilling to give a receiving location?
There's a lot of conditional and subjective stuff.

That's really all I've thought of for now, but if you have any questions, thoughts, or concerns, please let me know!