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.

...
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.

Zazie in the Metro? Oui, oui!

As noted in my last post I was in need of a copy of Raymond Queneau's Zazie in the Metro middle of this week. When I could not find one at either Denver Public or the 16th Street Mall Barnes & Noble (this all took place on a lunch break) I decided to let it go for the moment.

That is when Michelle from Denver Public gently reminded me about Prospector:

Hi,

I have a search feed for Denver Public Library so I occasionally see your
posts. I checked Prospector and a couple local libraries have the Zazie book,
including DU, and it says it's currently available so with your DPL card you can
place a hold on it and should get it in a couple days. http://prospector.coalliance.org/

Hope that's helpful.

Michelle

February 20, 2008 6:13 AM

It was helpful and I now have a copy of Zazie courtesy Prospector and the University of Denver Penrose Library.

I know I have mentioned Prospector before but I do not think I've explained or described it. Basically it is an agreement among some libraries in Colorado and Wyoming to provide inter library loan services to members of those libraries. It also offers a singular search platform.

Their web site describes it as:

Prospector is a unified catalog of twenty three academic, public and special
libraries in Colorado and Wyoming. Through Prospector you have access to over 20
million books, journals, DVDs, CDs, videos and other materials held in these
libraries. With a single search you can identify and borrow materials from the
collections and have them delivered to your local library.

I am quite a fan of Prospector, actually, and I believe this is my 4th book this year that I have obtained through the system. Part of what makes it so user friendly is that I do not have to go through a Denver Public search before accessing it. If I have the feeling that a certain title might be somewhat obscure, I often go to Prospector first. That way it will search Denver Public's holdings as well as the other libraries in the Prospector system. It's a nice intermediate step between my local library and WorldCat.

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On a completely unrelated note I downloaded the latest album by The Mountain Goats, Heretic Pride this morning. Somehow I found the time to to listen to the album twice in its entirety today and I am particularly smitten with the first two tracks, "Sax Rohmer #1" and "San Bernadino."

To say I have been meaning to check The Mountain Goats out for a while would be an understatement. A friend first played them for me back in 1995 or 1996. Though I remember liking them, my introduction came at a time when I was trying to break out of my indie rock shell. And so I shelved them, but only for a dozen years.

That initial impression stuck with me, though, and work this evening I tracked down the first song of theirs I ever heard, "New Star Song" from the 1996 ep Beautiful Rat Sunset, all based on the way he sang "Canada."

Zazie in the Metro?

I went to the Barnes & Noble on the 16th Street Mall today is search of Raymond Queneau's Zazie in the Metro. Denver Public Library doesn't have a copy and rather than wait for an inter library loan I was tempted to use my $25 "lifeline" to pick it up.

Alas the Barnes & Noble did not have a copy either.

This was my first real trip to a book store since I started not buying books. It was like visiting old friends. I stopped and read the opening passages of Fahrenheit 451 and was intrigued by the cover of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel pictured below.

But I didn't buy any books. Not even this one:

Janaury Tally

One month down, eleven to go. In my quest to not buy a book for an entire year I checked out 7 books in the month of January. At first glance I was surprised at how few books I did check out, but that is close to two a week.

I kept a spreadsheet of my titles, what each book cost and whether I thought I would have purchased each title or not. Then I took an average of the book cover price and what it sells for on Amazon.com and through Barnes & Nobles web site.

I determined that I would have purchased 5 of those 7 books. Since I checked them out instead I saved $79.71.

According to the Denver Public Library's "Library Value Calculator" my 7 books:

I received $27.66 individual return on investment meaning for every dollar in taxes I spend on the library, I received $27.66 value in return for the month of January.

Also according to the calculator, my seven books, one of which I received via inter library loan, I received a monthly value of $115.00 for the month of January.

Not bad.

Instant gratification

I can easily think of half a dozen books from the last six months that I simply had to pick up immediately upon becoming aware of their existence, the last of these being Millard Kaufman's Bowl of Cherries.

In fact it was on a lunch hour trip to Barnes & Nobles with a friend where I struck out on picking up the nonagenarian debut novel, when said friend asked "you still buy books?" That question partially planted the seed of my attempt to not buy books. I later found the book at Tattered Cover after deciding the library's wait list for their one copy was too long.

Invariably, my experience with Bowl of Cherries mirrored many of my must-read-right-now purchases; I devoured the first third, slowed down through the second and the final rests on my bookshelf caring not a whit whether I ever get around to finishing. Not that you have to finish a book to enjoy it.

And so the familiar madness afflicted me late this morning when I learned of an overlooked gem of a baseball book that featured the 1982 Brewers, Daniel Okrent's 9 Innings: The Anatomy of a Baseball Game. How could this be? How could I not read it already? I must have it right now!

And there it was on Amazon, presumably not in local bookstores (it was written over 20 years ago), but easily obtained within the week.

Except I’m not buying books.

I logged on to the Denver Public Library's site and steeled myself for the prospects of an interminable wait while my ILL request traced through the nation’s federated library systems. Then, huzzah! There it was, in DPL's system and even on the shelves. What luck! What happy, happy luck!

Within half and hour, my transaction - not purchase - complete, I happily thumbed through my book with thoughts of really sinking my teeth into it later this evening.

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As a follow up to yesterday's list on the best bookstores in the world, today I came across an AP story on the Seattle Times site of must visit bookstores in the U.S. Happily they include the LoDo Tattered Cover along with Seattle's wonderful Elliott Bay Book Co., which I still pine for.