How do you use your public library? Do you?
 

How do you use your public library? Do you use it at all?

I grew up using my public library but kind of got disconnected to it when I moved to a large suburban area where the library was small and inconvenient. When I moved to the town where I went to university, I used the university library a lot. Now that I'm not in school and have free time to read, I turn to my public library for entertainment. I have an awesome public library. I've had three new materials requests honored by my library. I use it to check out fiction for entertainment during naptime at work. I check out magazines to browse while watching television in the evenings (my husband watches television, I read magazines). I also love it for the vast array of cookbooks. When I got my stand mixer at the end of August, I headed to my public library to track down books on baking bread. It has proved to be an invaluable community resource.

I love that I have a place in town full of books, magazines, DVDs, CDs, and even video games at my disposal. I'm there at least once a week, looking for new stuff to read. I use the website to access such resources as Consumer Reports for free at least twice a week.

So how about you? How do you use your public library?

My county's library has a value calculator that allows you to see how much you save by using the library. I save at least $800/mo by using my public library. You can find out how much you save here: http://www.thebestlibrary.net/about-...rylinks-95/900

I think I would be described as a "heavy user."

I visit my branch on average once a week, and some weeks I'm there twice.

I maximize the advantages offered by their web system, which allows me to search, hold, and renew materials. I can hold up to 50 items at a time.

I can "pause" and "release" titles when I want them to come. This is handy if there is a long waiting list for certain items and I want control over when I get it when I'm next in line. The pause feature holds your position indefinitely.

The Toronto system is huge and has a ton of resources, including books, magazines, CDs, and DVDs. They also have a growing digital library of audiobooks and ebooks that you can download at home.

I'm impressed by the selection. They have pretty much anything mainstream, and will often have obscure things I want. In the worst case: it's a reference title only, which means I have to visit the branch. It is quite rare to not be able to find something at all.

The system also has a science fiction and fantasy library, which I haven't visited but will one day. From what I gather, it's huge. It's filled with novels, anthologies, graphic novels, and reference books---new and classic. I see stuff pop up from it on the web system all the time.

Anyway, the library rules. It's much better than spending too much money on books you may or may not read. That the Toronto system has pretty much anything I want means I can read whatever I want, and I can usually get it within a week, often within two days.

Public library, ftmfw!

OCLS allows for pretty much unlimited checkout and offers a slow but functional home delivery as well as having a frighteningly up-to-date DVD collection (they have better new release availability on things like iron man 2 and inception than blockbuster).

I was raised in a semi-traditional jewish and very nerdy household... which basically means I went through so many books so quickly that before I turned off the logging on my account I had to ask them to clear it every year because it would nearly crash their checkout system just from trying to add more.

We stop into our local library every few weeks to return 10-15 children's books and check out 10-15 more. It definitely beats buying new books, which my daughter loses interest in after a few weeks. Other than that, I haven't had much luck with having the books I want actually be available, which is just as well, because it takes me months to get through a book these days given the amount of other stuff I have going on.

For personal use, I went by once last year to pick up an additional copy of a local tax form... Our library has some great stuff for kids, everyone with a child really should take use of public libraries... I loved em when I was a kid.

I go to mine quite a bit. They have magazines, books, and DVDs. They also have high-speed free wifi.

Medium-light user. I used libraries more in college, but they're a nice place to relax and spend some time, especially with a close friend you don't feel like speaking loudly with.

Both my wife and I where heavy users when we where young (grade school). Now I don't read that much books, but our kids are there every second week to find new books. Our oldest son is there a couple of times a week to play games and hang with friends. (They have a gaming section with board games, XB360, Wii and computers)

light user these days.

i get pretty much all my info online these days. Gone are the days that we used encyclopedias to gather information.

i usually just buy the books i need from the bookstore or from amazon.

I use the library all the time for books, magazines, music on CDs, movies on DVD, and video games. My library is connected to many other libraries, so if I am looking for something specific, it can usually be found within a system of libraries.

I hardly ever buy books, and when I do buy them, I often donate them to the library after I have read them.

Growing up I was a heavy user - I was usually in library at least twice a week.

In university, I was in the university library almost daily.

Since moving to Chicago, I have attempted to use theirs but found myself frustrated by a library system that has many more users than it has resources for. Books I want would be on hold for 3-4 months out. The local branch closest to me was extremely outdated and not managed well - their online search would tell you it was available at this location but when you went to get the book it was nowhere to be found, or they could not find it to place it on hold for me.

I use the NY public library a lot. Sadly we can only reserve 15 titles at a time, I like the idea about pausing a hold, etc... I am there at least once a week, I am online on the site probably 2-3 times a week.

My son is 8, so we are at the library every Monday to get a fresh batch of books. I have enough unread books on my shelf that I don't get too many books from the library for myself.

I was shocked to learn recently that the Toronto system allows up to 50 items on checkout. The limitations are 1 week for DVDs and 3 weeks for other materials. You can renew remotely up to three times if the materials don't get a hold.

NY library we can renew up to 5 times, unless the item has a hold on it.

I'm a moderately heavy user of the Halifax Public Library. We get DVD's regularly, usually about 5-7 per week, also TV series on DVD. Since I've gotten a KOBO e-reader, I check out a lot of ebooks, which I read at work. Also, the main Branch for Dartmouth (the city on the other side of the harbour from Halifax) is in the same building as the ferry terminal which I work out of, so usually on a day where I have a few hours of break in between shifts, I will take my laptop and take advantage of the free wi-fi. I also take advantage of the hold system to reserve mainly DVD's. I have about 150 DVD's on hold, under suspension because I'm on a waiting list for them. When I'm 1 or 2 holds away, I change them from suspended to active. This way I don't have things arriving out of order or unexpectedly.

I don't know what the OCLS limit is, I'm not sure there is one given the number of books I've had on my card at one time.

Growing up I loved libraries and being around books. Several years ago, I worked in a university library and interacted daily with the people who checked out books and media. From that job experience I know I will never be able to comfortably use a public library again. Now I strictly use online resources. Germaphobia is painful.

since i got my e-reader last summer, i've become a heavy user of the Toronto library. At least my card allows me to sign out books for 21 days at a time. I have 3 books on the go at the moment. That has been my pattern since July.

I live in the sticks, outside the library taxing district. The local library is useful for research; but checking anything out is more grief than it's worth.

University libraries are awesome. I'm a huge fan of interlibrary loan.

Now, community libraries are great, too. Just serve a totally different function in my mind. Catering to fun fiction, comic books, history, religion... Gotten plenty of good cookbooks and gardening references there. But even in high school I found them woefully inadequate for research. It would help if more communities would link up with university libraries for this reason. I tend to find friendlier and yet knowledgeable staff at community libraries. Though at the moment I am more likely to use the university library since they let grad students check out books for a semester at a time. I also prefer the extended hours offered by the university. I find it challenging to visit any establishment where the hours are limited to 1-4pm most days.

Wow, those are some limited hours! And here I was bummed when we cut back hours to close at 6pm on Fridays and Saturdays and closed the library on Sundays. Our daytime hours are 10-8pm during the week, but I think those hours reflect how much our library gets used. I was there a couple weeks ago when the library opened, and there were lines outside the front door and the back door of people waiting to get in.

Our public library actually has some of the same electronic resources the university library does in terms of access to research databases. It's not as comprehensive, certainly, but if someone didn't necessarily have access to the university library, it would be a place to start. I like that.

I feel lucky that I live in a community with two totally awesome yet different libraries.

Also, how many people just love the smell of the stacks at a big library? Mmm, books.

I got an e-book reader (Sony daily edition) as a gift, I check out books online with my library constantly. It's great. Also, they have boatloads of videos and such for the kids. Love the library. I'm fortunate that it's close and convenient.

I'm in one right now. I also check out books here.

I actually started using it since college (for pleasure too) and haven't stopped. I'd use it more but my cities library sucks (very few books).

Hot damn. I've got to read something about outsourcing to India and I don't want to buy the freaking book if I don't have to. It's something like $90. So I think I'm going to go to the library and read it there. I can't check it out it's one of those must use in the library deals.

I was going to start using Overdrive to check out ebooks, but I now have over 5,400 books in my personal ebook library. I will never read all of them, not to mention I don't want to read some of them, Fabio is on some of those covers....