Do people know about this???
Are you aware that there's a place of awesomeness where a person can borrow any book their little heart desires. For free? This magical place is quiet and welcomes children and sends you kind emails to tell you that "hey! you've kept our book too long, would you like to keep it for a few more weeks? No, problem. Thanks for letting us know. You can give us the 20 cents we're going to penalize you for pretty much ignoring us whenever it's convenient for you." Damn. How on earth did I manage to forget about the library for so many years? I don't even want to contemplate the money I've wasted over the last few decades buying books. I'm a reader. I read a lot. I think at one point post-college the vague idea of the library as a place to get books rather than to cram for finals must have crossed my mind and I'm pretty sure the germaphobe that lives inside me pushed that idea away just as quickly. But now that I'm a parent (ie: broke and pretty much covered in germs anyway) the library seems downright dreamy. Here's how it works in my world: First, I walked into my neighborhood library and produced my driver's license and was handed a library card. duh. Then I established on online account where, get this - I reserve every and any book that might slightly catch my interest and then! the library elves find said books and TRANSFER them to my neighborhood library which triggers an extremely nice email notification that my books are ready to be picked up. It's seriously Christmas everyday. You should do this. Perhaps you already are. If so, you're about 100 times smarter than me and probably have a really nice savings account where I, on the other hand, have a bunch of books sitting in boxes in my garage.
posted by pixie sticks at 9:59 AM
4 Comments:
This reminds me of the time my husband and I were at Borders and he wanted to buy a hardback book for $27 but couldn't justify it. Suddenly he got this dreamy look on his face and said "I just got the BEST business idea! Let's start a video store but instead of movies people can come in and rent books!" And he honestly thought it was ground-breaking. I had to tell him that his idea is called a LIBRARY and has been around since the first library was built in Alexandria, Egypt.
pf: I keep thinking about this comment and laughing! That's exactly how I felt. Those Egyptians (and you) are smarties.
I don't know what I would do without the library-- we're there at least twice a week. I long ago discovered I have little use for most books once I've read them, so the library just makes sense.
petunia face: Tell your husband to hang on to that dream-- he could always open some kind of swanky high-end Bookrentorium where snot-nosed kids aren't allowed, and whatever else people seem to not like about the library is gone, and replaced with nicer, trendier things.
I like it so much I bought the company. Or should I say. I became a librarian. What books I do amass I just donate to the library so my colleagues can tell me where I left them.
It is a nice system, eh?
Post a Comment
<< Home