Miss borrowing books from libraries? This initiative keeps the experience alive
The act of borrowing books from reading places has gradually faded over time due to different factors. Aside from the emergence of e-books, there are also reading trends now like BookTok, where readers and authors talk about various books with the hashtag on the social media platform.
That's why 25-year-old writer Tisha Alyssa Caro started Borrow-a-Book: an initiative for bibliophiles who are up for "endless literary adventures." Through it, they are able to explore a virtual library containing titles that they can temporarily own. When they sign up for a P1,000 subscription, they will get a maximum of two book credits that they can use in borrowing books for a limited time. One read is equivalent to one credit, which borrowers can regain upon returning a book.
Borrow-a-Book’s shelf packs various genres—from memoirs like Joan Didion’s A Year of Magical Thinking to Japanese fiction like Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen. In the midst of the Intermezzo fever, Sally Rooney enjoyers can also borrow Beautiful World, Where Are You, while Gen Zs who are rediscovering classics can pick up works by Leo Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Jane Austen, among others.
Apart from the offerings, Caro kept in mind people’s reading pace for Borrow-a-Book, so customers can enjoy up to six months with their chosen titles. For her, it isn’t too long of a duration that people would be at risk of forgetting to return them, and it's just enough time for the books to stay in circulation.
"Most importantly, it encourages borrowers to stay engaged with their reading without feeling too rushed," she said in an interview with PhilSTAR L!fe. "Normally, libraries would ask you to return your borrowed books in just two weeks—but I know that some people who are still starting to read more might find this too pressuring."
Caro is currently a one-woman team behind the business, though she gets help from her boyfriend Ben for pick-ups and deliveries in the south since she’s based in the north.
There will always be a special place for physical books
While the business was inspired by the aforementioned reading experience, it's interesting to note that Caro never got to borrow a book from a library.
"As a very shy person, I've always felt anxious about talking to the school librarian and asking if I could borrow a book from the library,” she told L!fe. “It’s me and my fear of being rejected or being told that I couldn’t. So, I guess that’s something I want to work on for my library—I want to make sure everyone who would ask would know that they can borrow from the library as much as they want."
Books, after all, have always been a safe place for her. When asked about her earliest memory of a library, she looked back on her childhood days in Kumon. "My tita and tito who lived in the same compound as I did owned that franchise, so I would always go home with them. But that meant I had to wait for them to close for the day," she recalled. "When I would finish my worksheets early, I would always go to the corner at the back where all the books were. I’d pick up Corduroy, Madeline, and Harold and the Purple Crayon. That’s where you’ll find [the] little introvert me, hidden away among the books."
While she understands the cost-effectiveness and convenience that e-books bring now, Caro emphasized that nothing compares to physical books.
"There’s still something undeniably special about reading a physical book—the smell of the pages, the weight of it in your hands, the gentle pause as you turn each page, and the quiet satisfaction in seeing your progress as the pages on the left are thicker than those still waiting to be read on the right," she explained.
Beyond being a business, Caro sees Borrow-a-Book as a portal for her to share her book recommendations. "It's also about community," she said. “When you borrow a book, you become part of something bigger—a network of readers from different corners of the world, connected by the same story, but transformed in ways beyond what we can imagine."
"That shared love of literature is what brings people together, and with Borrow-a-Book, I hope to create and foster that connection," she continued.
With initiatives like her virtual library, books don’t only get a new lease on life or aid the environment even with a small step. Sure, it’s not an exact antidote for Filipinos’ need for more public libraries, but it supports their desire for a collective to an extent as well as the intentional participation within it.
"Borrowing books is about making reading more accessible to everyone. Literature shouldn’t be gatekept or reserved for certain types of people—it should be something that can be enjoyed by people from all walks of life," Caro mused. "It makes reading less about ownership and consumerism, and more about discovery. This is why no matter who you are, you can find something that’s right for you in our shelf."
