Status of the No-Book-Buying Year

Four months ago, I decided to try and make 2015 a "no-book-buying" year. No Chapters book purchase. No ebook purchases. No second-hand book purchases. Instead, I committed to getting books through my local library.

Four months into this adventure I have to say it's been working pretty good. According to my "read" shelf on my library account, I've read 17 books in the past four months. That's about four books a month, or one book a week, which I figure is pretty darn good. At this rate, I could have read 52 books by the end of the year. Quite an accomplishment.

There are some good points and some bad points to this library thing:

Perks
Money - I am saving mega $$ in my budget. No money spent on books means there is more money for other things. If I bought 52 books over the course of a year, average price $15... I would end up spending close to $800. Which isn't too far off from what the library has calculated. They took the market value of resources borrowed divided by the number of registered borrowers and voila... the value of my library card is $840.

No Remorse - Not buying all these books means I don't have buyer's remorse. You know how it is... a book looks good, sounds good... but ends up being a waste of time. This way... if I don't like a book... I don't have to finish it! And there are a few of those not included in my grand total of 17 at this point. And they didn't cost me anything!

Space - at this point, I have more space on my bookshelves. If I had bought those 17 books, I'd need to find room for them... which goes against my current desire to live a more minimalist lifestyle.

Ease - I let my fingers do the borrowing. I have yet to go into the library and browse the stacks. I hear about a book I want to read... or I do a subject search in the online library catalogue... or an author search...  and I am good to go. It can be a bit hit or miss sometimes because I don't get to read the back cover or the inside of the dust cover but... on the whole... it's been working well for me.

Environment - The library is really an environmentalist's dream. Instead of hundreds of books being mass-produced to satisfy hundreds of customers... five books can be printed and satisfy hundreds of customers over many years.

Peeves
Waiting - Big peeve. I have a "hold" list of about 11 books. These are books that I've requested and want to read but... I am way down the line and just have to be patient.

Feast or Famine - I have yet to figure out a way to regulate the flow of books. Sometimes I only have one library book at home. Other times, a slew of them come into the library at the same time and I end up with seven of them at home, waiting to be read.

Not enough time - When I end up with seven books at home, I find that I can't quite read all of them in the three week borrowing period. I can try to renew the books but if someone else has a hold on them then... they have to go back. So... that is a bit of an annoyance, but hasn't been too bad so far.

On the whole, I would say that I love this way of reading books. It's easy, it's cheap and it's good for the environment. Which is kind of funny because... when I was a kid, my mom took me on weekly trips to the library and I would always come home with a stack of books. At some point though... I started buying books or received books as presents. The Hardy Boys. The Black Stallion. Scholastic Book Services. I think it's kind of neat that I am returning to my library borrower roots....