Library Loot: September 23-30, 2009

After rediscovering our local library this summer, I was a weekly visitor. I would pick up 5 new children's books to read with the boys, one for each day we had 'school', and I would take a look to see if there was anything of interest to me. I did discover a couple of books I might not have read otherwise, and requested a couple more. All in all, a nice summer.

But then, because of an article about e-book readers, and the Sony e-book reader in particular, I discovered a new library! Now, how would my research about e-readers lead to a library. Well, it seems that Sony has made it possible to borrow e-books easily from some libraries:

Library Finder Brings eBooks for Your Sony Reader.

With the Library Finder, you can locate a Public Library near you offering many titles, including those from the New York Times Bestsellers List. Just like you would borrow a book from your public library, you can do so with an eBook.

Simply enter your zip code or state below and click "Search". Find the library nearest you to browse, checkout and download eBooks*. Look for eBooks that are compatible (in PDF format) and optimized (in ePub format) for the Sony Reader.

When I punched in my zip code, I got a library right down the road from me, but in a different county. Still, I decided to dig around a little in their webpage to see if I could use the service. In doing so, I discovered that I could  get a library card from them, all I needed was a FL ID, which I have. For kicks, I went and got the card, just in case I might get an e-book reader at some point.

The new library is in a bigger county, and has a college sitting right in the middle of it. I tried ordering a couple of books, and instead of taking several weeks, I got all 3 books in just a few days! Since the 'new' library is on my way to the larger town I go to shop once a week, it is very convenient. Now I have 2 libraries to get books from. If one doesn't have what I want, the other probably will!

This brings me to this weeks Library Loot! I picked up 2 books when I got my new card, and requested 3 more, which have already been picked up. They came in less than a week! So I have 5 books for this weeks loot.

 

Because I now have 5 books to read, I would expect this to be my Library Loot for the next couple of weeks. LOL!

 

Men of the Otherworld, The Reformed Vampire Suport Group and The Graveyard book will all fit in nicely with the RIP Challenge. Specials is the 3rd book in the Uglies Series I have been reading, and the Artemis Fowl book is the 3rd in that series. I have Breaking Dawn (from the other library) that I am finishing for the RIP challenge, and I just finished -and need to do an entry on- Living With the Dead.

With the holidays coming up, I've got to say that visiting the library will make me feel a little less guilty about my book habit, I am also more willing to 'experiment' with a book I might not like if I'm not having to spend money on it, and lastly, it is nice to go ahead and read a book like Dead and Gone or Men of the Otherworld now in hardback instead of waiting impatiently for a year for it to come out in paperback. I LOVE hardbacks, but between the price and the size difference making them more difficult to store, I usually wait and get the paperback (Well, not the Harry Potters, of course! LOL!). Mmmmmm instant gratification!

Library Loot #1

One of the cool things that came out of my adventures in tutoring this summer was my re-discovery of our local library. I wanted the boys to see that reading could be fun, not boring. To do that I needed a good variety of interesting and not boring kids books. To fulfil this goal I found myself standing in our local library for the first time in a long while.

One of my first goals when we moved here was to find the local library and get a card. I had my library card the first week.... unfortunately I was coming from a place with a large well stocked library to a much smaller, less up to date one. I visited a time or two, but was disappointed in the selection and spent the next couple of years visiting the book store instead of the library.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I found the library had made several improvements in the last 3 years. The selection of the type of books I enjoy was still very sparse, but the interlibrary loan system was much, much better. I could now go online and order the books/authors I was interested in and they would find their way to my local library and thus into my hands. While I still buy quite a few books, my budget is happy that I am also supplementing with some selections from the library.

A blog I read (Drey's Library) found a cool meme called Library Loot:

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

This week I just returned 2 books and picked up 2 more. I'm going to list all 4 books since I just discovered this really cool meme!

I returned The Host by Stephenie Meyer and Pretties by Scott Westerfeld (This is the 2nd in the Uglies Series, and I have the 3rd Specials on order).

I picked up Breaking Dawn by Stephenie  Meyer (The third in the Twilight Series) and Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris (the 9th of the Sookie Stackhouse books)

Have you been to the library lately?