In praise of libraries

 

Budget busting!

I'm guessing that regular readers of the blog will realise that I am a voracious and omnivorous reader with a serious book habit... one that there's no way I could afford to sustain if I had to buy all the books I read. 

While I am lucky that I have access to advance reading copies of some books through various projects and NetGalley there is no way that I could read so much without my local library.

I reserve a lot of books that I see mentioned in reviews, as well as books by authors that I love and I can't think of a visit to my local branch that didn't see me pick up at least one new book.

The library staff often laugh at me and sometimes question how I have the time to read all that I borrow, and I'm not sure that they believe me when I say that I don't read them all.

I should also mention that thanks to the extensive free loans for eMagazines and eNewspapers both Mr Norfolkbookworm and I get to read/skim though a lot of these each month and not buying them saves a lot of money in subscriptions as well as cutting down the amount of paper needed/recycled each week. Neither of us make much use of the free eAudiobooks that are also available but again these are huge money savers.

Back to books...

The reasons I borrow books are varied but I've been thinking about the main ones:

1) Typeface/size - since my brain haemorrhage I have found that some type faces are really hard for me to concentrate on and if the print is too small or dense I just can't get on with it at all. This means that I either abandon a book or look for the eBook version which allows me to fiddle with this.

2) Content - some books sound intriguing from a review but I'm not 100% certain that they are for me, so borrowing the book lets me try it out and really widens my reading at little cost.

3) Space - if I had to find physical bookshelf space for all I read I'd have to live in a mansion (and while I'd love a house with a library reading room that isn't possible where we live now). Even if they were all eBooks I think I'd need two Kindles to keep them all on!

4) Paying authors - each loan of a library book has a financial benefit for nearly all authors illustrators, editors, translators or audiobook narrators. This can be up to £6600 and a real game changer for a lot of people. I know that buying books from charity shops/second hand bookshops does mean the author was paid for the initial purchase but each & every loan counts towards PLR.

5) Timeliness - I'm lucky in that I live in a county with an excellent library service that usually gets new books pretty much on the day of publication, and for popular books usually in good quantities so even if there is a waiting list it isn't too long. They also often by eBooks which doubles the availability. The team also take recommendations and try to fulfil suggestions for new books. With the amount I read I'd have to wait for the paperback to come out to even come close to affording the books so getting them so quickly is brilliant.

And then the big one...

Cost - reservations in my county are just 80p* and as the average hardback price is now £22.00 and £9.99 for paperbacks this is an absolute bargain when you consider how much my current reads/reservations would cost:

• Current loans - £112.96
• Awaiting collection - £98.76
• Reserved and coming soon - £178.97

That's a grand total of £390.89 worth of books (if bought full price from an independent bookshop) for just £16.80 of reservation fees.

And this is just my October loans... this month is slightly different to others because so many new hardbacks come out for the Christmas market but still,  there's usually around 10 books on my reservations list at any one time.

The great thing about using the library and getting the books so cheaply means that my monthly book budget can then be spent with independent publishers who often have beautiful editions of quirky books that I'm keen to own, even if it will take me years to read them all!

These are just my personal reasons for why I love libraries so much - lets not also forget to celebrate all the other things that they can offer to so many people (study support, mobile libraries, free computers, warm spaces, social activities, children's sessions, business support, local history resources...) and to always support them if they become threatened with closure or budget cuts as the cost of living crisis and government black holes deepen.

*full disclosure here - I work for the library service and thus don't pay for reservations but even before this I did reserve about as many books and would continue to do so if this privilege was removed.