Apr 16th, 2008
Hunting for Discounts: Friends of the Library
I’ve made no secret of my fondness for the public library system here. CDs and books for three weeks for free, DVDs for a week for a buck. It’s hard to find better deals anywhere. That said, I’ve found some comparable deals on books and magazines–to own. Where?
Our local libraries all seem to have a “Friends of” association attached to them. Some have little (or not so little) bookstores attached. The copy of Your Money or Your Life that I’ve been taking way too long to read is one I got for a buck from a sale by a Friends of group. And it was an honest buck too, since their sale area is a bookcase with a cash box left unattended in the area. Who would steal money from a library, or maybe who would think there’s money there to steal?
There’s many more bargains at the Friends of the Library bookstore. Not only that, they just as importantly take donations. So when it’s time to do some thinning out of the library at home, where do I go? Right back to that same Friends of bookstore. I also donate old magazines to their swap table–some of which came from them in the first place! So it’s a place to recycle both ways–stuff you want that someone else doesn’t anymore and stuff someone else might want that you don’t have space for anymore.
The best story of all that includes the Friends of the Library here that I’ve seen isn’t one I participated in, but one of my online buddies Scott Yoshinaga of the great Nemu*Nemu comic found a piece of local history in a book he and his now-wife Audra Furuichi in a book they purchased at a Friends of sale: a certificate of election for the Hawai’i politician Duke Kawasaki. Using Twitter, our heroes contacted his son, the famous entrepeneur Guy Kawasaki and was able to get Guy his father’s lost memento. Now that was a bargain indeed!
Have you checked out your local library to see if they may have something for you aside from their items for loan? You don’t know what treasure you might find there!
I love the local library. We are walking distance to our branch, and it’s awesome.
And I’ve gotten some really nice books from the “Friends of” Bookstore.
Hey L:
I’m a serious library lover myself… but I’ve said that a lot of times already!