What we believe about books
Books are meant to be read, shared, and passed along — not accumulated. Plumerie exists to help readers organize what they own, rediscover what they’ve forgotten, and borrow from the people they trust before buying new.
That’s not just a product philosophy. It’s a position on how the world should work.
We align our work with two of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals — not because we applied for a badge, but because the goals describe what we were already building.
Read what you own. Lend what you’ve finished. Borrow before you buy.
Every book lent to a friend is a book not purchased new. Every unread surfaced on your shelf is a trip to the bookshop you didn’t need to make. Every family that shares one catalog instead of maintaining separate wishlists is consuming more thoughtfully without thinking about it.
Plumerie is designed around this. The lending tracker makes it easy to share books with friends and get them back. The library view surfaces books you own but haven’t read yet. The family sharing feature means everyone in the household can see what’s already on the shelf before buying a second copy.
We don’t run ads. We don’t use affiliate links. We will never make money by encouraging you to buy more books. These aren’t policies we adopted — they’re constraints we built the product around.
Research supports this approach. Lifecycle analysis shows that sharing a physical book significantly reduces its environmental footprint compared to individual ownership. And a home library of around 80 well-chosen books captures most of the cognitive and educational benefits of book ownership — after that, the returns diminish. It’s not about having more. It’s about knowing what you have.
Every language deserves a bookshelf
In Finland, 61% of first-generation immigrant-background youth have literacy challenges that affect their ability to participate fully in education or working life. This isn’t about ability. It’s about access.
Public library foreign-language collections are limited. Buying books internationally is expensive. And there is no infrastructure for multilingual communities to discover who nearby has books in their language.
Plumerie is building that infrastructure.
The app already supports 45 languages, with language-based organization and filtering built in. Friends can browse each other’s libraries and borrow books directly. Families share one catalog across the household.
What we’re building next takes this further: community libraries that let groups of people — book clubs, neighborhood networks, cultural associations — pool their collections into a shared, searchable lending library. No one gives up ownership. The community library is a window into what’s already on everyone’s shelves.
When 20 families each own 10 books in Somali, Arabic, or Dari, pooled together they have a 200-book lending library that didn’t exist before. Every bookshelf in a community becomes accessible to those who need it most.
What this looks like in practice
What we do today
Plumerie tracks lending between friends with a borrower invite system that works even if the borrower doesn’t have an account yet. Families share a single library catalog so everyone can see what the household owns. The AI-powered book enrichment system shares its results — when one user scans a book, every user after them gets the enrichment without a second API call. The blog publishes research-backed articles on the environmental impact of book lending, the science of sharing, and why a curated small library outperforms a neglected large one.
What we’re building
Community libraries that aggregate books from multiple members into a shared, searchable collection. Multilingual book discovery within local communities. Tools that make it as easy to borrow a book from a neighbor as it is to order one online.
If your organization works on literacy, inclusion, or community building, we’re looking for partners. Learn about partnerships →
Plumerie supports the Sustainable Development Goals.
The content of this publication has not been approved by the United Nations and does not reflect the views of the United Nations or its officials or Member States.