For me, it's been a week of torture for several reasons that I'm going to address here. It just made me realise how much I actually love the library and why you should love it, too!
Free books.
Books for free.
Free books.
How do I stress this reason well enough? I'm a student. Not that kind of student that eats raw pasta with ketchup because of how broke they are (not yet...kidding), but I have to say, I just haven't got the money to keep up with my reading. As I'm on a semester break right now, I promised myself to read 30 books. Thirty books in two months, that's roughly four books a week. Now, I really haven't got the money to buy four books a week, do I?
That's why I get these books in the library.
Now I know a lot of bookworms cherish their bookshelves and love buying books and everything. I can't say I'm different, but there's something different and even magical about library books. But there is one issue that really makes it harder for me to buy all the books I read. And that would be:
I read books that I know I probably won't like.
Yes, I do. If there's a book everyone reads and everyone likes and I know it's not going to be my thing, I still want to read it. I want to make sure, I want to make my own opinion and I just want to be able to say 'Yeeah I've read it and it's crap' instead of 'Ohh I'm not sure, I heard it's crap'.
Now, why would you buy a book you know you won't like? You probably wouldn't, would you? That's what I've got the library for! Experimenting with genres, languages, all those things. If I don't like the book, I don't need to regret any money. And that's a major plus point for me.
May I just talk about how amazing the local public library is? It's better than any other library I've gone to, there are even new releases and it's generally very neat and there are a lot of books I want to read. And oh dear, their online catalogue is just. Porn. Besides, I haven't had access to it for the whole week! Imagine not having access to porn all week! (Bad metaphor) Every time I find a book, I go onto the library's online catalogue, check if it's there, put it on my wishlist there and then just wait until it's in. Before every trip there, I just check the availability of the books on my wishlist, get the ones that are there, read all the books, return and repeat! It's beautiful. I may sound like I've just discovered the library, but the last time I've taken library very seriously was between the age of 5-9 and there really wasn't such a good online catalogue available. Although, there might have been when I come to think of it, but I didn't use it, oh well.
To be honest, I even cherish the act of waiting for the books, there's something amazing and exciting about it and it has happened to be several times already that directly in the library, I checked if a book was available and it was gone before I could reach it! Now if that isn't exciting, I don't know what is.
Besides, other thing that really needs to be mentioned - the library is not just books! It's also the media, DVD's, magazines, even music sheets! Everything you could ever wish for! Swooning over here.
But yes, I still do buy books. I buy new releases, books that I have read and liked a lot (*cough* The Martian or Salt to the Sea) or just generally books that I'm sure I'll like. (*cough* Again Salt to the Sea. Buy it. Read it.) I actually like it much better this way, because now my shelves just consist of books that I primarily like and not just all the stuff I want to read. I know it sounds impossible for someone, but it's working for me. Besides, I really need to save up now and since I barely spend my money on anything else than books, this is quite a good way to keep it up! Don't let the libraries die out!
How about you and libraries? Do you use them? I want to know!