Wednesday, August 3, 2011

I LOVE the Library

I love reading! I always have. From the time I was about 8 years old, I was always reading. While other kids were saving up their money for candy or trips to the mall, I was always saving my money for the latest Christopher Pike or Jack Weyland book. It never occurred to me that my love of reading wasn't very common. When I think back now, I don't recall any of my other friends ever mentioning a book they were reading, or had ever read. :)
I now have a number of friends that also read quite a bit. My very good friend Amber reads A LOT. She is usually reading 4 or 5 books at the same time. We belong to a website called goodreads. It's sort like facebook, but for books. You can follow people and what they're and see how they rated the books they've read. Amber has over 700 books on her shelves. She also has a 3 week old daughter, a 3 year old son and she is still reading 3 different books right now. Anytime we get together Amber is always talking about how she goes to the library all the time. As far as I know, she doesn't buy any of the books she reads, she gets everything from the library. I hadn't been to the library in about 15 years, so I didn't understand the appeal. But Amber told me about how she checked out dvd's and cd's in addition to all her books. They even have audio books. The library opens after I went to work and closed before I got off. On the weekend I just never could talk myself into going. I always thought that I should go check it out and some point, but I never did. Now that I'm FUNemployed, I totally have time to go the library everyday if I want to. So I finally went to check it out.
O-M-G!! The Library is awesome!! The nearest book store to me is about 25 minutes away. The library is a 10 minute drive. When I got there, I first had to get a library card. They give you a regular card, but they also give you a mini card that you can attach to your key chain.
Once I actually got inside, I was totally overwhelmed. I didn't know where to start. I had a hard time taking it all in, and I didn't really even know where to start looking for things, so this is what I ended up with on my first trip. 
Once I got home I went on the library website. That was really cool too. You can go online and search for items. If a certain item is not available at your library, you can request it and they send it to your library for you. When it comes in, they put it aside for you and send you an email that it.s there. You can also put yourself on the waiting list for more popular items. The only thing that sucks is that you can only have a maximum of 20 items on your waiting list.
I finished my books that I originally checked out that weekend and I received an email saying that some of the items I requested had arrived. So when I went back on Monday, I did much better :)
Since then, I have gotten a couple more emails saying that the items I requested were in.  I might be slightly obsessed, but these are the books I'm working on now.  :)

4 comments:

Nicole said...

Whoa. That is a serious addiction. I'm proud to call you my friend! ;)

eclaires said...

I like how you got the "Large Print Edition" of the Nora Roberts... like you're 75 or something.

Ghkk said...

That is a big pile of books! Speaking of reading, I'm loving reading all your posts.

Am said...

How come I never posted on this! I'm so glad you are in the know now about the library. What a wonderful new addition to your life. I don't know how you got along in life without it. Glad you are an enlightened soul now.