Smile Politely. Speak Directly. Champaign-Urbana's Alternative Daily

There’s a library of sorts in town that hasn’t drawn near the attention of the refurbished digs at the Champaign and Urbana Public Libraries, despite its offering a few books that you won’t find in the stacks of Champaign or Urbana’s book repositories. Such rediscovered treasures include: a robust collection of obscure 1950s-era science fiction, a turn-of-the-century cookbook authored by a former slave, the story of one man’s 1870s canoe trip from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, a collection of olden sea shanties and a copy of Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages. For the timid, this library also offers classics like The Jungle, Jane Eyre, James Joyce and Jules Verne. Truthfully, this library of sorts, cleverly titled BookGlutton, isn’t a typical library, although it offers plenty of books to read. Rather, it’s a free online Web site for reading books in a communal setting. That means no late fees for those keeping score at home.

The site’s selected reading material is a reflection of the diverse interests of its co-founders, Travis Alber and Aaron Miller, both residents of Champaign-Urbana.

“We like to bring in things that you wouldn’t find in your public library or your bookstore, and you’d be hard-pressed to find searching online,” says Miller. “If you sift through, there are some really interesting things that you wouldn’t have a chance to see otherwise. I think it’s interesting that we can bring these things back to the public eye in a new incarnation outside of paper.”

The duo launched BookGlutton, which is still in beta form, earlier this year. The Web site allows users to currently read more than 1,100 books, start or join book-specific reading clubs where the members can annotate on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis and chat with each other, and generally network with other literature fiends in a friendly-on-the-eyes environment. The free service is made possible by over a year’s worth of development work that resulted in the creation of the Unbound Reader, a first-of-its-kind interface for reading a book online that is both attractive and easy to use. In short, it makes the online reading experience a close approximation of holding a book in your hands, down to a design concern for font selection, words-per-page and other minute details.

Smile Politely profiled the upstart Web site back in April. Since that introduction, BookGlutton has entered a growth spurt and has received some national accolades of note.

GROWING, ONE AUTHOR AT A TIME

As more and more users join up, BookGlutton has taken a bold step in content procurement by allowing any author to upload his or her unpublished manuscript to BookGlutton’s library, effectively making the work fair game for anyone to read and comment upon. While this leap may leave BookGlutton just short of going head-to-head with self-publishing companies, it should prove an attractive way for burgeoning authors to workshop their material.

Meanwhile, BookGlutton continues to weigh its options in regards to copyrighted material. Nearly everything on the site is currently public domain material, but Alber says the site does aspire to offer copyrighted, contemporary books to its readers. That means striking a complicated licensing agreement with publishing houses, and potentially evolving BookGlutton into not only a place to read manuscripts, but also to purchase e-books.

“Publishers are just now being introduced to the huge realm of e-books sales. It’s untapped,” says Alber. “Publishers are finding out they’re not really equipped to handle that, but they’re interested in those distribution channels nonetheless. So, we think we have the ability to be the middle man in that sale.”

The Kindle, Amazon’s relatively new portable reader, is breaking ground in the world of e-book licensing and sales. BookGlutton hopes to eventually follow Amazon’s lead and is exploring sales models that may provide users with a significant preview option.

BookGlutton does face a significant challenge as it attempts to compete for readers against the pricey Kindle: connectivity. Once a person purchases the Kindle and buys an e-book for reading, that book can be read offline. Currently, BookGlutton users hoping to read in a public space require a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection. In addition, only certain Web browsers support offline reading. Alber and Miller are working to create an offline reading platform that would work with various browsers, in addition to the Kindle. The offline reading may be part of a future subscription-based tier made available to BookGlutton users.

“But we’ll always have a version of the reader that will be free, and content that you can read for free. It’s important to us to provide that,” says Alber.

Surprisingly for a young Web site, monetary concerns don’t seem to be the prevailing guiding light. After years spent living in California working as Web developers, Miller and Alber invested their own necessary financial and intellectual capital to get the site off the ground. Additional fundraising options have been considered, but the duo has hesitated in its pursuit of an influx of cash.

“We have a small operating budget so money isn’t a big concern,” says Alber. “But if someone did give us two million dollars we sure could release stuff faster.”

For emphasis, Miller adds in a comedic, deliberate voice: “Two. Million. Dollars.”

ACCOLADES ABOUND

BookGlutton’s recent national recognition could aid in fundraising efforts. Earlier this year, the site was nominated for a prestigious Webby Award in the category of “Community” Web site. While BookGlutton lost to the well-branded Flickr, the photo sharing site owned by Yahoo, Alber says she was honored simply to be mentioned among stiff competition that also included StumbleUpon and Delicious. In October, the site was honored again when it took home the Silver award in the W3 Awards, which honor outstanding Web sites, Web marketing, and Web video.

“It really felt good because we are a small operation,” says Alber. “It felt like, ‘Wow, there is some sort of level playing field out there — it depends on your work, not just who you are.”

BookGlutton plans to reveal several new features over the coming months. In the meantime, Alber and Miller will continue to spread the word through popular tactics like Facebook applications and Twitter streams, as well as reaching out to teachers who may see BookGlutton as a useful classroom tool.

“We have a lot of opportunities opening up and that feels good,” says Miller. “For a while it was just all hard work.”

Alber agrees: “This group of features that we’ve put together, we don’t see this anywhere else. It’s exciting to do something new.”