You will still buy a few books that they don’t have available, or that you really want to consult every day for a year; but you can save a lot of money, time, and space by visiting your local library before you visit amazon.
Time? I get the idea with most of them but it takes me a couple of hours to get down to the library and back whereas it’s like a couple of minutes to order from Amazon or somewhere.
Amazon takes a minimum of 1 calendar day to get a paper book to me, and that’s at some extra cost. I can get a paper book from my local library in under an hour if it’s on the shelves. (It helps that I live a block away from the Brooklyn Central Library.) If the book I want is not on the shelves, them amazon may be quicker; and I may order from them if I really need the book ASAP. For ebooks it’s a wash on time, though amazon does have a much better selection of ebooks.
As with all advice, adjust to fit your personal circumstances. If you live 2 hours away from the nearest library, you may be willing to trade money for time, especially if it[’s a book you’re pretty sure you’re going to want to refer to repeatedly, rather than just read once and put on a shelf, never to be looked at again. I suspect most folks live closer than that. Many people who live in an urban or suburban area walk or drive by a public library on an almost daily basis.
There are certainly reasons to buy some books rather than merely borrowing them. But my main point is that before reflexively going to amazon and clicking “buy It now”, you should take a few seconds to consider whether you might be better off searching for it at the library first. I am astonished at how many book hoarders I know who have apartments stacked with paper tomes, sometimes almost dangerously so, who somehow never consider setting foot in a public library.
Many library catalogues are searchable online. So you just have to search a different site to wether they have it or not. If they have it, it’s probably quicker to take a trip to the library than to wait for shipping.
But it requires active, exclusive use of time to go to a library, loan out a book, and bring it back (and additional time to return it), whereas I can do whatever while the book is en route.
That is true. However according to my experience you don’t need to spend much time in the library itself if you know what you’re looking for (you can always stay for the atmosphere). What takes time is going to and from the library. The value of this time obviously depends on a lot of parameters: is the library close to your route to/from some other place, are you currently very busy, do you enjoy city walks/bike-rides, etc.
Time? I get the idea with most of them but it takes me a couple of hours to get down to the library and back whereas it’s like a couple of minutes to order from Amazon or somewhere.
Amazon takes a minimum of 1 calendar day to get a paper book to me, and that’s at some extra cost. I can get a paper book from my local library in under an hour if it’s on the shelves. (It helps that I live a block away from the Brooklyn Central Library.) If the book I want is not on the shelves, them amazon may be quicker; and I may order from them if I really need the book ASAP. For ebooks it’s a wash on time, though amazon does have a much better selection of ebooks.
As with all advice, adjust to fit your personal circumstances. If you live 2 hours away from the nearest library, you may be willing to trade money for time, especially if it[’s a book you’re pretty sure you’re going to want to refer to repeatedly, rather than just read once and put on a shelf, never to be looked at again. I suspect most folks live closer than that. Many people who live in an urban or suburban area walk or drive by a public library on an almost daily basis.
There are certainly reasons to buy some books rather than merely borrowing them. But my main point is that before reflexively going to amazon and clicking “buy It now”, you should take a few seconds to consider whether you might be better off searching for it at the library first. I am astonished at how many book hoarders I know who have apartments stacked with paper tomes, sometimes almost dangerously so, who somehow never consider setting foot in a public library.
Many library catalogues are searchable online. So you just have to search a different site to wether they have it or not. If they have it, it’s probably quicker to take a trip to the library than to wait for shipping.
But it requires active, exclusive use of time to go to a library, loan out a book, and bring it back (and additional time to return it), whereas I can do whatever while the book is en route.
That is true. However according to my experience you don’t need to spend much time in the library itself if you know what you’re looking for (you can always stay for the atmosphere). What takes time is going to and from the library. The value of this time obviously depends on a lot of parameters: is the library close to your route to/from some other place, are you currently very busy, do you enjoy city walks/bike-rides, etc.