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You've heard people say that using the library will save you money. I've heard your excuses not to use it. It's out of the way. I end up paying late fees. The book I want to read is checked out. My library charges me for requests. It's inconvenient. Piffle! We live in an instant gratification society and we're used to getting what we want when we want it and who cares if we have to pay for it. Again, piffle! The library has saved me $1128.27 so far this year. And guess what, I've only been using the library since March and the year isn't over yet.
You're probably wondering how I came up with that amount. The $1128.27 figure seems quite exact and it is...but it also isn't. I maintain a spreadsheet where I list all the books I read each year. It's a Google Spreadsheet which I like because it means that I can access it from anywhere and it helps me keep track of not only what I've read but what types of books I'm reading. I just added two more columns to it - one for "Library/Owned/Borrowed" and one for the cover price of the book. I used the cover price to get the amount,ie the price I would expect to pay in any bookstore that I walked into, and not the price that I can get online or second-hand. The amount is, of course, debatable. In addition to not using sale or discount prices I also didn't include magazines, videos, musicCDs and cookbooks because I don't keep track of them and while I could remember some of them I wouldn't remember all of them. And well, the prices are in Canadian dollars. The price of a book in Canada versus the United States ranges from being the same price to being as much as 40% more. I personally found my biggest individual savings were in non-fiction and audio books but I read so much fiction that the quantity of what I read makes those a big saver. I'm comfortable with the amount even though it scared the pants off me to calculate it.
There are easier ways to calculate the value of your library use. The Maine State Library, Brooks Memorial Library and Montana State Library all have calculators to help you. You input how many books, movies, magazines, etc you borrow each month and it spits out a number. In my case I've read 46 library books since March. That's just about six books per month. Using those calculators it works out to between $90-150/month which is between $1080-1800 per year. I know what you are saying, and yes I do read a lot. Let's say you read just one book a month or twelve books a year. That's between $180-324 per year. Add one DVD per month in addition to that one book and your savings shoot up to $228-588 over the course of a year. Do you commute? If you borrow one audio book per month (which more often than not you can download right to your MP3 player) you'll save $120-492 over a year on audio books alone.
Now are you going to sit there and tell me that your library fines are going to be more than that each year?
As I've said, calculating all of this was scary. I actually added up all the books I've read in the past year (library, borrowed, owned and ARC copies) to date. That is 93 books so far and the total came to $2047.10. Ouch, ouch, ouch! If I were really dedicated I'd probably add up all the books in my apartment but I'm afraid if I did that I'd have to go hide under my bed. With a very large bottle of wine. Or maybe tequila. Needless to say that I will be triple thinking before buying any more books.The library is my friend and we're going to get even friendlier.
So how do I use the library effectively? Here are my tips.
- The online catalogue is your best friend. I check my account almost daily and when the catalogue is down for maintenance it drives me insane. (Obsessive? Me? Never!) Most libraries have moved their requests online as well. I love requesting books online. It's like shopping! But free!Ok , so maybe it's not free at your library so we'll say it's very, very discounted. Even if your library charges $1 per request and you request one book per month you'll
