Your Public Library

Hey Readers!

Alright, my question of the day is, Library or bookstore?

I saw this question raised the other day on a group on Goodreads, and it got me thinking about my own bookish habits.  I love supporting local bookstores, and buying books brand new.  There is just something about the way new books smell, and feel.  It's pretty close to an addiction for me.

As you know, the down side of doing such things is the fact that books can get expensive, and quick. So I started buying books secondhand to save myself some money.  It worked, but in turn I had ended up with too many books on my TBR shelf to be acceptable.

My plan to remedy this was getting a library card at my local library.  At first I was a little skeptical, I mean, do I really want to touch a book that so many other germy hands had been on?  Not to mention the state of some of the books there are slightly depressing.  Looking past all of that, I walked up to the counter ready to get a card of my own.  The process was completely computerized (at least at my local library) and it was really quick.  They even took my picture to make sure it's really me checking out books.

Libraries have so many resources available to card holders and its all free! Yes, free! There is a fee to do things like sending or receiving a fax, making copies, and printing things from the internet.  Those fees are relatively low, and seemed reasonable to me.  My local library even had a section dedicated to researching family history, which I thought was super cool. There is even a "family history specialist" available some days to help with your research.

Did you know they even have foreign language programs you can check out? You could learn a new language for FREE!  That is another cool thing that I have yet to check out, but I am super interested to look into all the options they have.

Your local library may even have some E-Book options for you E-Readers out there.  Personally, I can hardly read from a screen, whether it's my phone, laptop or a tablet.  I really, really like the feeling of a physical book in my hand and getting the satisfaction of turning the pages, which brings us back to my book addiction.

Overall I love the library and will continue to check out books, along with picking up a few new ones as well. Let me know what you think, will you be giving your public library a chance?

Thanks for reading!!
Stephanie