Library Use is Booming Because of Recession
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada 
on 01. 5.09
Photo: Flickr
The Good Ol' Book is Back in Vogue
When green advocates talk about product service systems (PSS), many might be left scratching their heads (if that's you, check out the linked Wikipedia page). Yet we're all familiar with public libraries, a great example, and when times are harder economically, people increasingly turn to these alternatives to owning stuff. Read on for more.
Photo: Flickr
From the Boston Globe:
with the economy sputtering, unemployment rising, and no relief in sight, Massachusetts libraries, long the victim of budget cuts, are busier than ever before, said Robert Maier, director of the state Board of Library Commissioners.Attendance is surging. Check-out rates are soaring. At some libraries, circulation - the number of items checked out in a given month - is up as much as 33 percent since last summer. And for the unemployed, libraries have become something like an office, with computers, Internet access, and even classes that teach how to write a r??sum?? and peddle it online. In a tough time, it seems, people are returning to a place where whispering trumps shouting and no credit card is necessary. At the library, just about everything is free.
You Don't Always Have to Buy Something
Indeed, when you take a "goal approach" to your needs, you realize that there's more than one way to fulfill them. If your goal is to read, to go online, to watch a movie, or learn something new, you could always spend money at a bookstore, etc. But it's always good to see if there are cheaper & greener alternatives. This might seem obvious, but very few people think that way...
How many times do you read the books you buy on average? I know that I my personally average probably isn't much higher than 1 (though most of what I buy isn't available at our local public library). Some books in libraries can be read 100s of times over decades, making them a much better use of the energy and materials that went into making them.
The point here is not to guilt anyone into buying fewer books. By all means, read more books, even if you have to buy them. In the long list of environmental problems, people reading too many books is very near the bottom; in fact, if people read more (quality) books, the world would probably be a better place.
Yet I want to encourage you to think about your needs from a "goal oriented" perspective in general, not just when it comes to reading. You need to drill a hole in your wall once every few months/years? Do you really need to buy an electric drill? Could you borrow one from someone? Public libraries are just one example among many (ZipCar and bike-sharing programs are other great ones).
Via Boston Globe
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Must be nice. Here in Jackson County, Oregon, the libraries are closed because the state started to ween itself from federal timber funds 10 years ago. Now, ten years late, no one has done a thing to prepare for the loss of revenue, and everything is closed down. Geniuses,
That pre-cycling for you. It's an interesting phenomenon. Books are going to go the way of digital music and movies this year. Books will fair better than cd's or dvd's, but not by too much in terms of personal ownership
This is a great post! Yes, I am a bit biased (I am a librarian at a public library), but I'm very glad that you're suggesting that people see using their public libraries as a green alternative to buying books.
Also, if your library does not own something that you are interested in reading, talk to your librarian about the different options of obtaining the item. Most libraries will purchase items based on library members suggestions or they may suggest borrowing the item from another library.
Yay libraries! I'm a librarian in Australia and we're very busy at the moment, but I'm putting it down to the summer holidays rather than the recession.
If there are books you want that your local public library does not have, inquire about interlibrary loan services. Most libraries have arrangements to borrow items on behalf of their users from other libraries. You might have a reduced checkout time or a different late fee structure to be away of but it expands greatly what you can get.
thanks.
Some US libraries do have electronic books and audiobooks you can download from the internet (through a 3rd party vendor such as Netlibrary) --- usually DRMed and don't play on iPods.
The US National Library Service for the Blind customer reads an average of 30 audiobooks and 20 braille books/year -- well over the average print reader.
I love the "Inter-loan" feature at my library, quite often my small town library doesn't have a book, but they can get it for me within a week- it's fabulous!
What's great is that I was able to get my favorite old shows on DVD to borrow, and lots of CD's. If your library doesn't have it, chances are they can find it for you!
The only bummer is, some very popular books have a waitlist of about a year, in the case of the popular "Twilight" series, there were about 488 holds on the book, I'm not sure how long that equates to!
The best environmental reference library on the planet has opened in Norwalk, Connecticut. For those of you who want to catch up on all the great green books and magazines you've missed over the years, the Environmental Library Fund has collected a huge chunk of green pop culture history on its shelves. Well over 20.000 titles.
http://www.the-aquarium.org