Employees have their own collection of amazing books at home, and many of them are happy to share with their colleagues. Bookly allows you to search, add, checkout and lend books to others in your organization.
Hey Product Hunters, thanks for "checking out" (little library pun for you there) Bookly!
🤔 I built Bookly to solve my own problem. I work in a start-up with some really driven people with a passion for reading and self-improvement. We were constantly recommending and lending books to each other but there was no easy way to keep track of who owned which book, which books we loaned to others and which books were available to borrow.
📚 Bookly allows you to list your personal book collection, lend them to others and keep track of who they're with. When you find an available book you love, hit "checkout" and Bookly will message the owner to confirm they're happy to loan it out. Once they confirm then Bookly will start a conversation between you and the owner to organise the swap. Other colleagues will then see this book as "checked out" until you return the book.
For companies with an existing library, books can be added with the organisation tagged as the owner. For these books employees can checkout books immediately with no need to get confirmation of the checkout, allowing companies to easily manage their inventory.
I welcome all kinds of feedback/suggestions (FYI, joining a waitlist is not possible yet but high up on the roadmap). Happy reading!
Hi Etan,
Thank you for your feedback. Yes, on the landing page there's a section "Why Bookly?". I'll paste it in here for your reference :)
Cost saving -
The average person reads 12 books a year. For a company of 50 employees sharing their collections, that amounts to a saving of $9,600 per year! For a company of 200 that's a saving of $38,400 per year
Learning -
In addition to making employees more knowledgeable, reading has also proven to improve empathy skills, memory function, focus and to reduce stress. All of which help produce a more happy and efficient workplace.
Ease of use -
Employees are already overwhelmed managing logins for multiple platforms at work, and external library portals create an additional barrier to learning.
Everyone keeps their Slack open, so knowledge is just a slash command away.
Environment -
Sharing and re-using books instead of purchasing new ones reduces the worlds carbon footprint by 2.7kg per book. For a company of 200 people reading 12 books per year, that's as much C02 as a return flight from England to Australia.
Also happy to organise a video call to discuss your company's needs once you know more. The contact details are on the website.
@james_reilly thanks for the detailed response... all fair points!
To be clear: This is an AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME idea.
I am on the free demo now and I have a bunch of questions. Still on the fence between bookly and google sheets, but since you're offering a video call I'd love to take you up on that.
Sending you an email.
Thanks!
Etan
This looks very cool and is very timely considering a new library my company is launching.
Awesome idea for the bookworms among us!
That said, $25/mo isn't nothing... especially since office libraries are (unfortunately) such an afterthought. Any advice on how to pitch this cost internally?
Hi @etan_efrati,
Thank you for your feedback. Yes, on the landing page there's a section "Why Bookly?". I'll paste it in here for your reference :)
Cost saving -
The average person reads 12 books a year. For a company of 50 employees sharing their collections, that amounts to a saving of $9,600 per year! For a company of 200 that's a saving of $38,400 per year
Learning -
In addition to making employees more knowledgeable, reading has also proven to improve empathy skills, memory function, focus and to reduce stress. All of which help produce a more happy and efficient workplace.
Ease of use -
Employees are already overwhelmed managing logins for multiple platforms at work, and external library portals create an additional barrier to learning.
Everyone keeps their Slack open, so knowledge is just a slash command away.
Environment -
Sharing and re-using books instead of purchasing new ones reduces the worlds carbon footprint by 2.7kg per book. For a company of 200 people reading 12 books per year, that's as much C02 as a return flight from England to Australia.
Also happy to organise a video call to discuss your company's needs once you know more. The contact details are on the website.
Bookly