I live in Houston, Texas, which is in Harris County. As such, I have access to two separate but very good library systems. A new branch just opened within biking distance. Boy, do I get my money's worth. I'm a power user, usually with my holds maxed out. I go at least once a week.
With my post about reading this past weekend, I am mulling over a follow-up post. One thing I'd like to know is do you use you local library to check out/read/return books or do you like to purchase the books you read?
11 comments:
I purchase or receive review copies of about about 80 percent of the books I read each year. But I continue to use my local public library to check out older books and non-fiction resource works. I often have those sent from Seattle's downtown public library to my neighborhood branch for pick-up. I also use the library for historical newspaper research.
Cheers,
Jeff
We live on the border of two great county library systems and visit a branch of each every weekend. That's where I get most of my new books, movies and music. I have to keep 95% of my old stuff in storage, which takes some of the fun out of buying new stuff.
I use several libraries for research on a regular basis, and I also check out a considerable amount of the fiction I read, maybe 30%.
I keep a book log of the books/authors I want to read--and the first place I always go to look for them is my local library's on-line database. I get at least 75% of my reading material from the local library--and a lot of the rest comes from the Friends of the Library book sales.
I use the library in Alvin all the time. I can reserve books on-line and get books from just about anywhere with ILL. The library's going to close for nearly two months for repairs to Hurricane Ike damage, and I'm going to be at a loss.
I used to work for a college bookstore chain and got to know the book buyers quite well and was thus hooked up with advance galleys on a regular basis. The nice thing was it exposed me to a lot of new books/authors I might not otherwise have found/discovered/stumbled upon without the financial investment normally associated with that.
Since I've moved on to a completely new company in a much different industry I've started using the local library considerably more. There are some authors I insist on buying as I'm a big enough fan of their work and want to contribute to that. In addition to a fine book selection, the local library has a respectable DVD collection. They have a lot of silent films and some pre-Hayes Code films that I've started checking out and thoroughly enjoying.
For some reason libraries have always annoyed me. I prefer to own what I read.
I go to the library at least three times a week and check out books, music, DVDs, etc. I have done this my whole life. We were too poor to buy books for most of it.
I didn't use the public library much until I realized that I could search for item and place them on hold all online. Wow, what a difference that made. Now I go to the Library once a week. I can't imagine my life now without the library.
I go to the library so often, I'm on a first name basis with most of the librarians.
I have five library cards: Los Angeles, city, Los Angeles county, Pasadena, South Pasadena, and UCLA--but I just realized it's been a long time since I've gone to any. Guess my bookshelf is too full right now.
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