BookCrossing (also BC, BCing or BXing) is defined as "the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise." The term is derived from bookcrossing.com, a free online book club which was founded to encourage the practice, aiming to "make the whole world a library." The "crossing" or exchanging of books may take any of a number of forms, including wild-releasing books in public, direct swaps with other members of the websites, or "book rings" in which books travel in a set order to participants who want to read a certain book. The community aspect of BookCrossing.com has grown and expanded in ways that were not expected at the outset, in the form of blog or forum discussions, mailing lists and annual conventions throughout the world. History Leaving reading materials in public places when no longer needed has long been a silent means of communication and sociability amongst bibliophiles. Ron Hornbaker conceived the idea for what is now known as BookCrossing in March 2001 and enlisted business partners and co-founders Bruce and Heather Pedersen to launch BookCrossing.com on April 21, 2001. After two years the website had over 113,000 members and by 2004 it was prominent enough to be referenced in an episode of the Australian soap opera Neighbours. The same year it appeared as a new word in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, although as of 2017 only Collins of the major online dictionaries retained it as a word. Membership surpassed 1 million by March 2012 and the registered book count exceeded 8.5 million. By November 2019, there were over 1.9 million members and over 13 million books travelling through 132 countries, of which over 25 thousand books newly "released in the wild" in the previous month across over 60 countries, with over 80% of the books being released in the 8 most active countries (Germany, United States, Spain, Italy, Australia, United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Brasil), while 30 countries had seen a book release in the previous 3 days. In July 2007 Singapore became the first country to give the practice official status, designating 2,000 locations in the country as 'hotspots', similar to Official BookCrossing Zones, in an initiative launched with the National Library of Singapore. The world's first official International BookCrossing Day took place on 21 April 2014. Bookcrossing is also actively developing in the countries