Post: #1

How many of you guys visit the public library on a regular basis? I do, probably 2-3 times per month, and I'm absolutely appreciative that millions of books, movies, etc. are available for loan free-of-charge.

My public library's website allows me to log-in, request books, and pick them up at whatever branch I'd like. After the football game today, I walked six or eight blocks to the library, picked up the books and DVDs I'd requested, then left and caught the bus home. Took me less than five minutes, in and out.

Books I borrowed today:

A Cook's Tour by Anthony Bourdain

The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia by Mark Ames

The Red Queen by Matt Ridley

Griftopia by Matt Taibbi


Total cost of these books (paperback) on Amazon ... $52.41

Cost to borrow them from the library ... $0.00

Win. I love the library.

Post: #2

(12-08-2013 07:44 PM)MSW2007 Wrote:  I'm absolutely appreciative that millions of books, movies, etc. are available for loan free-of-charge.

I appreciate the public library system, but I also realize that nothing is free. For example, those that pay taxes fund the library system including those books, movies, salaries, electricity, etc.

Post: #3

Absolutely. I obtained copies of all four Pimsleur Spanish sets through the inter-library loan system.

Every year, when the Academy Award nominees are announced, I request all the movies (usually, most of them are on order by then) and when I get an e-mail from the library I just pick them up.

I download audio books for long international flights. Many libraries have free access to ancestry.com so that you can research your genealogy.

The library system is a good deal, especially if you use the inter-library loan system (you can obtain almost anything).

Post: #4

Once a week. I get 6 dvd's, books on Cd and sometimes a video game. Free.

Post: #5

For a second I thought this was The Public Library Approach Thread.

Post: #6

(12-08-2013 09:51 PM)Menace Wrote:  For a second I thought this was The Public Library Approach Thread.

The forum tackled that a couple years ago:

/thread-4961.html

Post: #7

(12-08-2013 09:51 PM)Menace Wrote:  For a second I thought this was The Public Library Approach Thread.

I guess you've never visited the "Knowledge, Arts, and Letters" folder before.

Post: #8

Good thread. I'm lucky to be living within walking distance of one of the best libraries I've ever come across: La Grande Bibliotheque du Montreal (Montreal's main library). 2 million items, tons of new books, movies, etc. Absolutely fascinating.

Post: #9

Was not impressed with my small town library's selection. Then I discovered that inter-library loan was not just a college thing. Now the city library is tracking down materials for me from Colorado, Florida, Illinois. I'd like to think it breaks up their day a bit: "another language CD for that guy arrived in the mail."
Then there are the used book sales. Got a never-used study pack of Hindi (2 discs, 2 casettes, book) for a buck.

Most of us had to pay zero dollars for all these materials, so if your library has a 'booster club' or fundraiser, drop a few dollars their way.

Post: #10

Ironically, I visited one today and I just saw this thread.

I was driving and was hit with a serious case of the shits. With nowhere to go, I pulled into a neighborhood with intentions of squatting behind a tree.

Lo and behold there was a library! I quickly parked in a handicapped spot and made a dash inside to the restroom.

Disaster averted.

Post: #11

(12-10-2013 12:58 AM)McQueensPlayboyRules Wrote:  Lo and behold there was a library! I quickly parked in a handicapped spot and made a dash inside to the restroom.

Disaster averted.

Old college library had a poorly designed floor plan. The whisper-quiet study corner was right next to the bathrooms, with thin 1960s doors. Every few minutes a new symphony.

Post: #12

A big plus to joining the alumni association of a lot of universities is that it grants you free access to any library on the campus system.

I like my local public library, but there's a lot of homeless people there and I'm cool letting them have that space to handle their business while I drive the extra 15 minutes to hit up the college campus library. Lots of 18-22 year old girls, little competition, and as long as you check out books nobody is gonna look at you like a creep when you cold open people asking about where to find a book/what they're reading

edit: also, reliably cleanest public bathrooms available are in college libraries.

Post: #13

(12-10-2013 01:07 AM)EisenBarde Wrote:  A big plus to joining the alumni association of a lot of universities is that it grants you free access to any library on the campus system.

I like my local public library, but there's a lot of homeless people there and I'm cool letting them have that space to handle their business while I drive the extra 15 minutes to hit up the college campus library. Lots of 18-22 year old girls, little competition, and as long as you check out books nobody is gonna look at you like a creep when you cold open people asking about where to find a book/what they're reading

edit: also, reliably cleanest public bathrooms available are in college libraries.

Apparently one of the local universities offers library access to non-student, no-alumni for less than $100 per year. I'm probably gonna join.

There tend to be a lot of vagrants and others I don't wish to associate with congregating at the local public library, one of the reasons I love the convenient "requests" option. I browse the online catalog, the selections are ready for me when I arrive, in and out the door in less than five minutes.

Post: #14

As much as I love books, the thing I love most about public libraries is that they are full of intelligent, mousy, relatively undamaged and undersexed women who want attention and are eager to please. I like to sit in a high traffic area on the front steps of my local library reading Investor Business Daily and say hello to every cute girl who walks by. On the way out, I ask them if they found anything good in there and sometimes that starts a conversation. It's simple, but effective, with low pressure and low bitch shields. Warm days between 10 and 2 on the weekends, and say 11-1 on weekdays if the library is located close to enough local businesses to get good foot traffic during lunch hour.

Post: #15

(12-10-2013 03:58 PM)Capitán Peligroso Wrote:  As much as I love books, the thing I love most about public libraries is that they are full of intelligent, mousy, relatively undamaged and undersexed women who want attention and are eager to please. I like to sit in a high traffic area on the front steps of my local library reading Investor Business Daily and say hello to every cute girl who walks by. On the way out, I ask them if they found anything good in there and sometimes that starts a conversation. It's simple, but effective, with low pressure and low bitch shields. Warm days between 10 and 2 on the weekends, and say 11-1 on weekdays if the library is located close to enough local businesses to get good foot traffic during lunch hour.

I guess Menace was right. It was only a matter of time.

Post: #16

(12-08-2013 09:51 PM)Menace Wrote:  For a second I thought this was The Public Library Approach Thread.

Lots of cute girls at the library.

/thread-14130-...#pid391063

(Even more at the local university library)

Post: #17

Try to go once a week.

Really allows me to focus.

I also keep an eye out for cute girls.

For TO cats, the reference library on Yonge is obviously the biggest. Lots of ESL students , mainly from Asia, in particular korea. Few cute ones, nothing spectacular.

There's an old retired white teacher I see always 'helping' them out. Has some sort of in. Always with a new girl.

Now I know what I'll do when I retire myself...

Post: #18

One of the things I really like is the audiobooks.

I have to drive a lot in my job and I can make productive use of that time in my car with listening to books.

Just finished biographies of Christopher Columbus and Andrew Jackson.

Post: #19

(12-11-2013 12:14 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  Just finished biographies of Christopher Columbus

What did you think was cool about Christopher Columbus?

Post: #20

(12-11-2013 03:59 AM)Giovonny Wrote:  

(12-11-2013 12:14 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  Just finished biographies of Christopher Columbus

What did you think was cool about Christopher Columbus?

The book is long, over 20 CDs, but engrossing. What I liked about it was that there was a lot I didn't know. You could make a good argument that no one man did more for discovery than he. He made 4 voyages, and until the end of his life he always believed he had reached the doorstep of India or China.

It was also fascinating to know of all the political intrigues surrounding his voyages, how he dealt with the Indians, with mutineers, etc.

The discovery of the New World inaugurated the "columbian exchange": the diffusion of things from a new world into the old. It was not just a huge event in history, but also in biology. Plants, foods, diseases, people, etc., came into contact that had never known of each other before.

Post: #21

I checked out my local library recently. The book selection sucks. 80 percent of the books are on black history. I didn't see any book that spark my curiosity.

Post: #22

(12-08-2013 07:44 PM)MSW2007 Wrote:  How many of you guys visit the public library on a regular basis?

I'd never set foot in that socialist, communist, fascist emblem of Obama's beta power-grab.

Post: #23

I went to the library today after reading this thread, thinking it would be full of young studious undersexed girls ready to be approached by a cool guy.

Instead it was the most depressing den of the dregs of society I've ever seen.

Full of old people mumbling to themselves, shuffling around, sitting like fat lards on the computers mouth-breathing loudly, guys that looked like Santa Clause, old ladies, ugly, socially-uncalibrated unemployed men droning on and on to librarians who clearly didn't want to talk to them. I sat and read my book for about 20 minutes before the stifling silences punctuated by a single mom's 3-year old son scraping a toy truck against a table forced me out of there. It was like the Mos Eisely of depressing libraries. And I live in very rich suburb of New York.

I've had much better luck with target selection at Barnes and Noble. Something about a free space to loiter in attracts the worst elements of a community.

Post: #24

Yeah, public libraries are hit-or-miss.

Some of them, in wealthy suburbs, are clean, well-funded places where you can get tons of good books, audio or video materials, or can listen to lectures on a wide range of current political and cultural topics. I'm lucky: I live in a county that has the most money in the state, and it puts a lot of money into its libraries.

But I've lived in places in the past where the public libraries were dodgy at best, and during the day were hangouts for alcoholic bums and other detritus of humanity.

Post: #25

(12-10-2013 01:07 AM)EisenBarde Wrote:  I like my local public library, but there's a lot of homeless people there

THIS
insane, stinky, drugged-up winos, stoners, derelicts fuck up the local library branch, the librarians are too chicken shit do anything about them for fear of retaliation