The March Tally

Mismanagement of my fantasy baseball team and a seventeen-month-old with an ear infection have kept my hands full of late, but I will get back into the swing of things as I have several observations and items to share about not buying books.

After three months I am surprised at how easy it has been to acclimate to what I thought would be a major shift in my spending and reading habits. Maybe it is the ease with which I can reserve books online, or that the library is so close to my work. Three months into this thing I have not had a major urge to buy a book.

I will be curious to see if that trend continues as the days get longer and, more importantly, hotter. Not being a native, I find Colorado summers rather unpleasant. Many people hole up and read during winter, perhaps I will reverse that trend and increase my reading – and perhaps my desire for books – in the summer.

More on that later, let’s take a look at the March tally:

I checked out 12 books this month. One of these books I acquired via Prospector. I am proud to report I actually finished a few of them, including Graham Greene’s The Ministry of Fear.

Of these 12 books, I determined that I would definitely have bought 7 of them. These books would have cost roughly $95.25.

When I plug these numbers into the Denver Public Library's "Library Value Calculator," for my 12 books (1 of which was an inter library loan):

My individual return on investment for March was $45.69. This means for every dollar in taxes I spend on the library, I received $45.69 value in return for the month.

In addition, the Library Value Calculator reports that for the month of March I received a monthly value of $190.00.

More soon!

The February Tally

Alright, it's the first of March and I've got my February book tally. I checked out 12 books this month - 3 of which I received via the Prospector inter library loan service. I used many of the books as reference or read just a chapter or two of. Others, like The Moviegoer, Zazie in the Metro and How to Rig an Election I am on my way to completing. But more on those later, for now let's go to the tally!

As explained last month I keep a spreadsheet of the titles I check out and what each one costs according to the book jacket. Then I take the price of each book from the web sites for Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble to come up with an average price. Finally, I determine which books I would have definitely purchased were I buying books to come up with my monthly savings. In addition to this I enter my books into the Denver Public Library's value calculator.

I determined that I would have purchased 7 out of the 12 books I checked out for a savings of $103.46.

According to the Denver Public Library's "Library Value Calculator" for my 12 books (3 of which I obtained via inter library loan):

I received $50.50 individual return on investment meaning for every dollar in taxes I spend on the library, I received $50.50 value in return for the month of February.

I received a monthly value of $210.00 for the month of January.

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As an aside, tonight I am going to see recent Oscar nominee Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight! at the Temple Buell Theater. Hope to have a report for you tomorrow.