Bookmooch founder John Buckman has returned from a promotional tour and is back in his home state of California. To mark the occasion he sent out an e-mail to all members of this fantastic online tool, detailing some things remarkable ("BookMooch now has 100,000 books, 10,000 members, and 20,000 books have been mooched. 1600 books are being mooched right now. And all this, since Bookmooch launched 9 weeks ago, on August 6th.") and others welcome to committed moochers, like yours truly ("the "find books and people by location" feature is back. I had taken off while I was traveling because it didn't work right, but now it's all fixed and here to stay").

The stats say it all, and while the 'by location' tool returning is terrific news, it doesn't solve a basic problem faced by Aussie moochers. (It only takes one point to mooch a book from someone in your own country, while it takes two to mooch a book from overseas.) The problem is in the stats. As of today: Australia: 1775 books, United Kingdom: 5883 books, United States: 53756 books. So it's unlikely that I'll find what I want here at home. It's far more likely that I'll find it in the inventory of a U.S. resident.