I thought I'd do a small and occasional series about my recent attempts to save money. Let me be clear, this is not becoming one of those frugality blogs. Although I wouldn't say I live high on the hog--I drive a 10+-year-old car and I always use Suave shampoo--I'm pretty sure nobody would ever use the word frugal to describe me. Frugal people reuse Ziplocs and have the current grocery ad memorized at any given time, and they tell stories about buying 17 toothbrushes for a quarter.
So, I'm not to one to be giving tips on frugality. Instead, these posts are just recaps of my misadventures in trying to cut back on my household spending.
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I've always loved the library. It's a great place to take kids, especially in the winter when you're desperate for indoor entertainment. And obviously when a kid's book takes 5 minutes to read, you want to be in the business of borrowing books rather than buying all of them. Ditto those ridiculous children's DVDs.
And the library is fun for adults too. I'm really impressed with all my library has going on. It's definitely not your grandma's library. They have a "Hot Copies" shelf for current bestsellers and DVDs, free coffee, a very advanced computer reserve system, and CDs you can rip to your iPod. Oh, and the library-sponsored free book clubs have wine at them. Yeah.
In attempting to save money, it's obviously a no-brainer that you would turn to the library for media-based entertainment. When I realized that I spent $36 on iTunes in September, I put a moratorium on paid music downloads and made a rule that all music acquired in October must come from the library.
And when we, like most people, cut back on our Netflix this month, I agreed to turn to the library for my movie rentals. (I'm letting Bill fill up our one remaining queue. I know this sounds like I'm being some kind of martyr, but in truth I find Netflix to be a lot of pressure, to watch as many movies as possible and get them turned around quickly, and I'm not really all that great at sitting down in the evenings and watching movies. I'd rather watch DVR'd TV shows, surf the Internet, or read.)
Plus I vowed that when I'm at the grocery store and I see a magazine cover story that catches my eye, I can just read that article at the library instead of buying the whole magazine.
So, I had the library for music, movies, and magazines. But, ironically, the one thing I didn't feel like checking out at the library anymore was books.
Now, don't get me wrong. Historically I have been a great consumer of library books. The online hold system is really easy to use and allows you to get the latest bestseller within a reasonable period of time, rather than waiting months and months like in the old days. And, as I said, you can often get those bestsellers from the Hot Copies shelf, too. My recent concerns about the library have nothing to do with lack of availability.
It's just that recently I've decided I really prefer eBooks on my Kindle to what my mom calls "dead tree books." The Kindle has many advantages, such as (1) it is lightweight and portable, (2) it's easier to read on the exercise machines at the gym, and, most importantly, (3) it allows you to have any book you want, instantly, right now.
So I was stuck with a library full of taxpayer-purchased dead-tree books, and yet I had developed a preference for eBooks.
And then, all of the sudden, the library got Kindle books!
Except, I was honestly confused about the mechanics of it all. How does a library book get on my Kindle?
I asked the librarian at the check-out desk how it all worked, and she said I had to go ask the people at the reference desk. But by then Nathan was halfway out the door, and I just had that sense that it was way past time to leave the library, so I decided to do a little online research myself.
Truth be told, the "online research on my own" method suits me better anyway. I really don't like to ask for help. And, although there are few nicer, more patient, more helpful people on the planet than librarians, I felt a little bad just going up to them and saying something like, "I have a Kindle. I have a library card. Tell me everything I need to do."
Never fear, though, the library site had a 12-part video tutorial on how to use eBooks from the library. And every video seemed important, too. Like I shouldn't skip the one called, "Your rights with digital media," right?
So even though the first video had about a 45-second stall wherein they played cheesy elevator music as a backdrop to a stock photo of a woman in a library holding a stack of books and the same cell phone I had in 2002, I watched all 12 parts. And then I downloaded two kinds of software.
Then I figured I would just be able to jump on the online database and start reserving all kinds of eBooks from my "to read" list. Except, the search engine on the database was not all that user-friendly. It was a little like using Yahoo or Alta Vista in the late 90's; you got like 10 unwanted hits for every useful one. (And who remembers that search engine with the little dog icon that would dig while searching? What was it called, Dogpile?)
For example, at one point I searched for a book by an author with the first name Jennifer. Of course I used that author's last name, too, (though I can't remember what it is now) but the search came back with every book they have by an author named Jennifer. (And if you went to an American high school in the 1990s, you know that there are a lot of Jennifers out there.)
Additionally, the library didn't have every book on Kindle yet, which, I mean I didn't expect them to, but ... you know, yeah, I kinda did. And they didn't have the ability to reserve books that haven't been released yet, like you can with the hard copy system.
I also would like to see integration of the online hold system for hard copies and the online hold system for eBooks in the future. It would be nice to be able to see all the formats that a particular item is available in. But I recognize that such an integration would probably involve a huge amount of data entry and programming and other things I don't understand, and the poor library is already understaffed and underfunded as it is.
Which brings me to another point: I do not expect that the library should have all kinds of free eBooks right at my beck and call, such that I could totally replace buying Kindle books on Amazon with checking out Kindle books from my library. I am truly appreciative of all the library has to offer (see: wine), and of the kind people who work there. I'm just mentioning these minor pitfalls I experienced in my attempts at using the library eBook database, because I want to tell the whole story.
In the end, I was able to find a couple of books on my "to-read" list and reserve them in eBook format. Plus I think the search engine is more suitable for browsing through lists (e.g. "most popular" or "new releases"), rather than searching for a target item, and browsing can be fun, too. I got two new books for my Kindle, Blood, Bones, & Butter and Can You Get Hooked on Lip Balm?
Both are non-fiction books that I'm sort of interested in, and are the kind of books that I can read concurrently with fictional novels. They're good for the elliptical, so now I don't have any excuse to skip that workout, and if I don't finish them before they're due, oh well.
(Added bonus to using library eBooks: You don't have to return them anywhere. They just disappear off of your Kindle on the due date.)
So, anyway, once I checked the eBooks out from the database, the process of putting them on my Kindle was super easy. Your library eBook comes directly from the Amazon site, which is always very user-friendly. (Also I feel good that Amazon is supporting libraries, and that I'm not putting Amazon out of business by getting Kindle books from the library. I do love that site.) I had to plug my Kindle into the computer via USB and drag the book's files into my Kindle folder. And then it the books were on my Kindle! And eBooks are free of potential germs, spills, splotches, and bodily fluids from the last library patrons who read them!
I ended up reserving a few hard copy versions of books that the library didn't have in eBook form. I figure if I can just keep a few library eBooks on the Kindle at all times, I can still read "dead tree" books at home and take the Kindle to the gym and to other places where I can appreciate its portability.
And I'm not saying that I will never buy another book from Amazon again. I'm too weak for that. But hopefully I can make good enough use of the library system that I'll be able to make a significant cut in my book-buying budget.
Oh and yes, I do want one of those new touch-screen Kindles that Amazon just introduced. But something tells me that purchase isn't in line with the whole frugality thing.
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