Though my year of not buying books does not officially start until the New Year, today I got a head start.
Several coworkers have recently recommended the David Maraniss biography of Vince Lombardi, When Pride Still Mattered. The downtown Barnes & Noble had a copy but upon picking it up my instant reaction to the 500+ page tome was "Egads, that's a lot of Vince Lombardi!"
And so I defied tradition, placed the book back on the shelf and checked out a copy from the library on my walk home.
In the upcoming week I'll write more about my experiment, why I am doing it and what I hope to accomplish.
Stay tuned...
2 comments:
Here's my first question: Is the interlibrary loan system used by Denver Public Library free? That is, if a book is not available through DPL, can you request the book from another associated library or system for free?
In my limited experience it seems that most large, well funded, or highly cooperative systems do have free ILL service, whether the library is public or academic. In which case, you may have access to a much wider array of material than you thought.
Your reading habits tend toward more recent and more obscure material, whereas I am often reading books that are 50-100 years old . . . but I have almost never had a problem finding a book through my member libraries or their ILL affiliates.
Quick confession: My reluctance towards purchasing books stems from four main factors. 1) I am cheap. 2) I rarely read things more than once and find library due dates propel me towards completion of a book. 3) I have lived in dorm rooms, studios, efficiencies, and teeny tiny one bedroom apartments since I was 18 where storage and shelf space is extremely minimal. And 4) I hate packing and moving more items than will fit in my car.
Second question: If DPL provides ILL as a fee based service, will you pay $1 or so to request a book?
Ginger, Denver Public Library does offer free interlibrary loan (ILL) and I use it quite often. I would, however, pay a small fee for ILL under certain circumstances. By small, I mean under $5.
The only time I have encountered a fee through DPL came several weeks ago when I tried to obtain a small press reader guide to Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. The library that replied to my request was not willing to lend me the book, but they were willing to send me a photocopy of the table of contents and first chapter for $8. At that point I canceled the request since my interest in the book was not very strong. In retrospect I should have seen it through if only to see what they delivered.
I currently have two books that I obtained through DPL's ILL. The first is another reader guide to Blood Meridian that is very hard to obtain and that sells for several hundred dollars on Abebooks. This is a book I could not afford and I was pleasantly surprised that DPL was able to obtain it for me through ILL.
The other is a book on upper Midwestern folk music. In this case I became impatient waiting for my request and ordered the book from Amazon. My Amazon copy came quicker than the ILL and I am happy to have it in my personal library, an option I will not have for the upcoming year.
I am going to post more on ILL later this week, but thanks for starting the conversation.
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