Library or Bookstore?

[Rogers_68]

I have been buying the books I read for about a year and a half now, usually used. If I end up not liking them I sell them or use BookMooch to get rid of them. Lately I've been thinking about starting to use the library more, both to support it and to save a little money. I like having books on my shelf and I like being able to write in them when I find something interesting. I'm finding, though, that I don't really re-read them and I never really do much with them after I read them. They end up being a conversation piece or just a memory of what I've read. Anyway, I just finished a book from the library and when I returned it it felt good not worry about where I could find my own copy and how much it would cost. (However, I'm awfully attached to the ones I already own. )

Just out of curiosity what do others here do?

[jgweed]

You seem to forget that many texts are available on-line, in which case you have the option to print them or not. For example I read Grant's Memoirs on line, and they are not available at either a bookstore, and I imagine what passes for libraries (outside of large cities and universities) in many locations.
Cheers,
John

[sprinks]

Due to lack of income (due to being a teenager with a busy school life ) I go to the library. I buy books when it's something I will read heaps though - and also when people ask what I want for birthdays and Christmas I reply "BOOKS!!" and that saves me some money - just I don't get them for ages!
But I have a feeling even if I was able to pay for all my books, I'd still go to the library - I love libraries!!
Also I don't buy my books because it's so darn hard trying to decide which ones I want!!

[stlukesguild]

Personally I prefer the library... my own library that is. I have been collecting books for years and now have a more than sizable collection because I rarely get rid of a book unless I am certain that I will never wish to read it again or because I have purchased a better edition of the same work. All art, to me, involves a form of dialog. Certainly there is the dialog between the artist and the audience... but there is also a dialog between the artist and other artists. There is no telling when I am reading one book how I may be directed to another book... another writer. In most instances I have also found that my own library is far more inclusive in areas that interest me than are most public libraries outside of the larger metropolitan ones.

[Nightshade]

yes support the library, a couple of papers and studies in the uk have sasid that if current user trends continue by 2015-2020 public libraries will become obsolete. And then where will we be? I work in a library and here is the 'insider scoop' on how to manage your books, borrow borrow borrow, if yu like it so much you know you will want to reread it buy it. Now normally if Ive borrowed it 3 times Ill go out and buy it. Also ex-stock sales you can get fairly good books really really really cheap... then just redonate it to the library if you want to get rid of it. I have a traffic of about 50 books every couple of months going through my house from one books sale to another.
But the thing to rember with librtary books is the fines I currenlt hwave a £50 fine on my uni library account because I got distracted and have forgotten to renew my books and it is soooo easy to avoid I was just lazy dont let that happen to you.

Plus the thing with book stores if you didnt like the book youve wasted your money.

[Nossa]

Bookstores! Since we don't have any decent libraries here, my only resort is buying books (or downloading/reading them online). I wish we had more libraries here though.

[Bakiryu]

I can't choose. I love owning the books i read but i love exploring new books in my school library.

[johann cruyff]

Bookstore.I just hate constantly keeping in mind that I have to return the book - I will rather purchase it than borrow it.Anyway,I just think of it as the beginning of a huge collection I'm going to have one day.

[tractatus]

I like library, but practically bookstore. / due to many reasons.

[aabbcc]

Library, definitely.
And you are being told that by a girl who, as somebody put, has "more than sizeable collection" at her home - yet, I still feel better going to library and discovering new things, to a point that I tend to borrow books I have at home (sometimes without noticing). I have, for example, three copies of A Hero of Our Time in my own collection (Russian original as a part of "collected Lermontov", Croatian translation, Italian translation), and I am pretty sure my parents own one in their collection a couple of rooms away, yet I read the copy from the library both times I was reading it. A weird child, I know.

I do buy books, but usually I buy books I have already read and am sure I would like to have, in addition to dictionaries, histories of art, works of such kind. Literature, though, I usually buy after having read it.
And I still love libraries.

[andave_ya]

yes support the library, a couple of papers and studies in the uk have sasid that if current user trends continue by 2015-2020 public libraries will become obsolete. And then where will we be? I work in a library and here is the 'insider scoop' on how to manage your books, borrow borrow borrow, if yu like it so much you know you will want to reread it buy it. Now normally if Ive borrowed it 3 times Ill go out and buy it. Also ex-stock sales you can get fairly good books really really really cheap... then just redonate it to the library if you want to get rid of it. I have a traffic of about 50 books every couple of months going through my house from one books sale to another.
But the thing to rember with librtary books is the fines I currenlt hwave a £50 fine on my uni library account because I got distracted and have forgotten to renew my books and it is soooo easy to avoid I was just lazy dont let that happen to you.

Plus the thing with book stores if you didnt like the book youve wasted your money.

YAHHHHHHHH!!!! I agree with you completely. Now, I've a "waiting list" of books I want to get but if they aren't ones that I have read more than once and will read again they are classics. The library booksales... H E A V E N!!!! Once I filled a whole paper bag with thick luscious books...12 to be exact. And only 3 of them were paperback. I paid a grand total of 3 bucks for them and Oh! don't they look gorgeous on my bookshelves now...Have yet to read them all, but I'm working on it....As a volunteer sorting donations, too, if I find a book that I really want I can take it...I keep telling myself "no, no more books, you have at least 20 at home," but I came home with [i]Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and Cry, the Beloved Country I'm going to end up with books to last me fifty years after I die! LIbrary is grand...really grand. My second home.

[novelsryou]

Bookstores! Since we don't have any decent libraries here, my only resort is buying books (or downloading/reading them online). I wish we had more libraries here though.

Egypt has always fascinated me, I really must get there some day.

The Royal Library of Alexandria and the new one.

That said, I get most of my books from Amazon.com, it's just easier.

[Erichtho]

Bookstore.

I don't like the covers the library puts on the books and I don't like handling books that have been heaven-knows-where. I also never seem to return them on time, and that makes me feel bad.

Seconded. I never liked public libraries.

[Weisinheimer]

I hate spending money, so I'm for the library all the way. I love libraries. I guess we have pretty good libraries around here, I've been able to find most of the books I want pretty easily. I live right in the middle of 4 different counties, so I have 4 different library systems to choose from. One or the other usually has what I'm looking for. I like getting movies and music from the library, too.

[LadyWentworth]

I prefer to buy the books that I want to read. I honestly have never gotten rid of any that I have read (unless, of course, it was something so bad - then I just tossed it off for somebody else to suffer with while they read it). I have a pretty extensive collection for my own "library". I suppose that since I like the "look" of books on shelves, that is why I prefer to buy and keep books. If I ever go to the library, it is because I want to save money on the books that I wouldn't normally pick out for myself. Those books are the ones that are recommended by others for me to read. Also, another reason I prefer buying books over the library is because I have an unlimited amount of time to read them. I kind of hate the pressure of the due date.