Puzzling it Out: Why Your Local Library Should be Your Go-To Destination for Entertainment

Back, before the pandemic, I'd visit my local library to pickup some books that I had reserved. And there was usually a 1000 piece puzzle spread out on one of the tables, in various stages of completion. I thought it was pretty cool... that you could go to the library and work on a puzzle. Maybe with other people, maybe just by yourself. I never sat down there... always being in too much of a rush to get my errands done.

Of course, all of that stopped with the pandemic. No sitting the library. No browsing the stacks. And definitely no communal puzzle to work on! But now... things have opened up again. Did they bring communal puzzles back? I haven't seen them... but I did see something else!!

Real Books or E-Books?

A few months ago, I cashed in some Aeroplan miles for $100 worth of Chapters gift cards. Ooohhh... books! If you've read some of my earlier blogs, you know that I'm a big fan of books. At the same time, I'm a big fan of lightening the load of stuff that surrounds me. Which means I'm a bit torn.

I love being able to hold a book in my hands, be able to flip back and forth through it, look at the table of contents or even read the ending. But... I've given away so many books over the years, it seems a bit of a waste to buy more physical books, knowing that they will likely just end up in the donation pile in a few months or years. That seems like a waste of money to me since books are NOT cheap. I could try selling them afterwards but, honestly, most books are not worth very much on the secondhand market. Ever go to a garage sale? Paperbacks are $0.50 and hardcovers are $2.00. Eesh...

My other option was to buy some e-books. They are cheaper than real books but not as tangible. I find it more challenging to navigate through them, and can't just flip back easily to find that page where I had read something. Yes, I can make notations and stuff but... it's a bit more of a hassle... and I've never been a "write-in-books" type of person, not even e-books!

Then I began to wonder... should I even buy books? Be they real books or e-books? After all, there is the library which has all sorts of books available for free. What was I thinking getting gift cards for Chapters? I could buy something else... maybe some journals? But I have journals coming out of my ears (bought for cheap at a garage sale), so that's not an option. Fluffy blankets? Decor? No and no... we don't really need anything like that.

After much back and forth... I finally decided on e-books. They are much lighter than real books! Easier to pack around too. And, if my eyes are tired, I can make the print bigger. (See... I don't need glasses!) And if it's getting dark, I can just turn up the back-lighting on my Kindle. Alas my Kobo doesn't have that feature but... there's always something to read on either e-book reader.

And... if I'm sitting in the Superstore parking lot, waiting 45 minutes for my online shopping order to be brought out, I can whip out my smartphone and continue reading whatever book I have on the go. Or start another book. Or whatever. It's just sooo convenient. So, e-books it is... but which ones?

I have had my eye on some fairly hefty books for a while (e.g. Digital Minimalism and Deep Work, both by Cal Newport). I've toyed with the idea of getting them from the library but I'm going to need more than three weeks to absorb them.

Sooo... after a bit of deliberation, I ordered the two books by Cal Newport and then a few decluttering/organizing books (I'm a bit of a junkie), including Goodbye Things by Fumio Sasaki. While I listened to his audio book, I really wanted to spend some more time with the book and sink into it... or rather, let it sink into me. I also got a book on simple living called You Can Buy Happiness and it's Cheap by Tammy Strobel (of Rowdy Kittens fame). I've been wanting to read that one fora while too. The last two books in the image above were ones that I bought last year and aren't part of the latest purchase.

What about you? Are you an ebook convert or a real book holdout? Or do you have a foot in both worlds?

Tempted by Scribd

Oh geez... after lauding the benefits of library membership, I find myself being sorely tempted by a service called Scribd. Just a small monthly fee and... I could have instant access to unlimited ebooks and audio books. Ooohhh... darn...

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've discovered the magic of audio books and we have had trials with Audible and Kobo... but Scribd is a game-changer. Because while Audible and Kobo limit you to one free book credit per month for a monthly subscription fee of $15 CAN (or so)... Scribd is unlimited... for the same fee (or less!).

I signed up for a free 30 day trial with Scribd and... have been happily splashing around in audio books and ebooks. I think the thing I like most is that it recommends other books I might like and lets me easily save them to my "To Read Later" list. I have quite a lineup of saved ebooks and audiobooks...

And... I have been tempted to actually sign up for Scribd... It's "only" $13 per month and I could for sure read or listen to more than one book a month... And, there is no waiting for a title to come available, like at the library... Oh, it's so tempting... But that's $156 per year and... I'm not sure about it.

I am, however, tempted to sign up with another one of my email addresses and get another free 30 day trial... With enough email addresses, I could sign up for a few months and really see if I get the benefit from it that I think I would...

Or... is it worth it to just bite the bullet and get a subscription... sigh... decisions, decisions.

 

 

Throwing Money Away

Every time we donate to a thrift store, we are throwing money away. Well, not really... but many times, we are donating an object that has some sort of monetary value. At least, we like to think so. I mean... it has value to us (maybe more spiritual and emotional) and so we like to think that someone else will see the value as well. We think that once we donate this object, the thrift store will turn around and sell it to some one else. Someone who will love the object and use the object. We benefit by getting rid of our unwanted items. Someone else benefits by purchasing our used item for less than new. And the thrift  store, which we hope is a charity, benefits by selling that object for more than $0. It's really a win-win-win.

But... and you knew there was a but... only about a quarter of the stuff that we donate to thrift stores is actually sold by the thrift store. What happens to all the other stuff? Where does it go? What happens to it? Because we know that every day more stuff is being dropped off at thrift stores across the country and... if only 25% sells... that means that the stores need to either expand or... reduce their inventory.

I know that at Value Village, the colour coded price tags means something. There is a four or five week rotation... and once blue tags (for example) have been out there for four weeks, that material is culled from the shelves and taken into the back. But then what? Maybe you've read the news articles about how Value Village ships our unwanted junk to Third World countries in Africa. Which seems quite irresponsible and Value Village has gotten a lot of flack for that. But... of course... there is more to the story than meets the eye.

I got a crash course in the global trade in secondhand goods when I read Adam Minter's latest book - Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale. I had read his earlier book, Junkyard Planet and got a lot of out of it... so his new book seemed like a no brainer. If you get the chance... I highly recommend both books - they are eye-opening to say the least.

So... here's the thing... there is a huge international market in secondhand goods - clothing, toys, tools, computers. And it's not always thousands of miles away. Down near the US/Mexican border, there are hundreds of savvy Mexican entrepreneurs who sift through the Goodwill Stores just across the border in the US, searching for cheap designer clothing, toys and what have you. They buy stuff for cheap, take it across the border, fix it up a bit and then sell it for a good profit. Because, let's face it, we aren't great at repairing things up here. If an appliance breaks, it's often cheaper to buy a new one than to diagnose and repair the old one. Planned obsolescence in action.

As an aside... do you remember Speed Queen? They made/make washing machines and dryers for laundromats, hotels, etc. Their machines are built to last... 25 years or longer and they now sell to the general public. It used to be that Maytag was built to last but... nowadays, not so much. Manufacturers have this planned obsolescence thing down pat... build something that will break in five years so that the consumer has to go out and spend more money and buy a new one. And we wonder why our landfills are overflowing. I got all excited over Speed Queen selling to the public but... they apparently don't sell in Canada (yet). Bummer.

Anyhow... Minter makes a point that planned obsolescene is simply degrading the planet because we use way more resources to make things not just once but over and over again. On top of that... all these obsolete or broken things need to go somewhere. But... while broken things might be too expensive to repair in Canada or the US... that doesn't necessarily apply in developing countries, or even places like Mexico. Get a broken washing machine for cheap at an American Goodwill, fix it up, and then resell it for a hefty profit in Mexico.

And yes, things like clothing, electronics and used cars do get shipped farther afield, to Africa. Let's be really clear... this is not us offloading or dumping garbage on the poor Third World countries. These items are charged with hefty tariffs when they are imported into Africa. And the African entrepreneurs and businessmen who import these things have a discriminating eye. They know what sells in their home countries... and they ship what sells. And what can be repaired. For example... a car is "totaled" in an accident in Canada. What that really means is that the insurance company has decided that it would be more expensive to repair the damage given the depreciated value of the vehicle. But... many "totaled" vehicles are still prepairable. So you will find cargo containers packed with damaged vehicles being shipped to Africa. Each vehicle is also shipped with the parts necessary to repair it. Even accounting for the cost to purchase the vehicle, the tariffs and duties charged to import into Africa... the vehicles are still sold at a profit in Africa.

Some argue that when we export our used clothing, we have essentially killed the African textile industry. Perhaps. But as Minter points out, the Chinese are exporting huge amounts of cheap clothing and electronics of poor quality to African nations as well. The discriminating Africans, however, would much rather have good quality secondhand materials from North America or Europe... if it's fashionable. If it isn't fashionable... forget it. They are, of course, as easily swayed by the latest fashions as we are... and so they will also buy the cheap Chinese knock-offs of Gucci or whatever... even knowing that it won't last beyond a few washes.

As for our electronic waste... maybe you've seen the BBC piece about the toxic e-waste dump at Agbogbloshie in Ghana. So horrible how North America and Europe dump millions of tonnes of e-waste onto Africa where it is burned to extract the metals. Except... as Minter notes, the BBC piece neglected a few key steps in the process. Yes, African entrepreneurs import all sorts of discarded phones, tablets, laptops and computers from the First World. But they don't just toss them on the junk heap. First, the items are examined and repaired. If they are not repairable, then they join a parts stockpile...ready to be pilfered for usable bits and pieces. The repaired items are then sold at a profit. We might think that it would be better to just disassemble and extract all of the valuable metals from these broken devices but... is it not better for these devices to get a second or even a third life before finally being disassembled and their parts used elsewhere? And yes... if our electronics find second and third lives in the Third World, then we need to figure out a way for those countries to be able to process the e-waste in a responsible way when those electronics inevitably die their final death.

This leads to another of Minter's pet peeves... electronics that have been assembled in such a way as to dissuade any sort of repair. Apple is quite bad with this... gluing pieces together rather than using screws, not providing repair manuals, etc, etc. It used to be that the same thing happened with the Big Auto Manufacturers back in the seventies. They wouldn't provide their repair specs to independent auto repair shops... until legislation was about to be passed in one state and then, all of a sudden, Big Auto decided to work with the independents. So... it can be done... 

Minter suggests that if we really want to take climate change and the growing environmental catastrophe looming on the horizon seriously... it starts with us.

• Building things that last - this requires a quantum shift in how clothing (fast fashion), electronics (newer and better), appliances (planned obsolescence) and cars (built to require maintenance) are all manufactured
• Buying (or demanding) things that last... be it clothing, computers, appliances or cars
• Eliminating the "proprietary" nonsense that means things are built to be extremely difficult to disassemble and/or repair
  
• Repairing before replacing... there was a time when my Mom darned our socks before finally tossing them in the rag basket...
  

Finally, Minter has this heart-stopping tidbit for us... nobody wants our old stuff. The wedding china, the cute cat statues, the books, the tchotchkes that mean so much to us... ultimately everything ends up in a dump somewhere because things do eventually break to the point where they can't be repaired. And no, our children and grandchildren (or nieces and nephews) do not want and will not want this stuff. It's a hard pill to swallow because our stuff is so important to us... wrapped as it is in emotions and memories. But to someone else, that little statue of a girl that belonged to my great grandmother is just an ugly tchotchke. It's heart-breaking... we want to believe that our stuff will be loved by someone else... but odds are... it won't be. So... better to look at our proposed purchases with a more discerning eye. Do we really want/need that item... is that item going to last more than a few washes or a few years...

 

A Little Library

During the height of the Covid-19 lockdown, all public libraries were closed and that was a serious issue for reading addicts... like me. Luckily, I had several unread books on my bookshelves and managed to weather the worst of the storm. I did cave in May and bought some e-book novels... old favourites that I know I will re-read over and over again.

But the thing is... I completely forgot about our community Little Libraries. An idea first developed in the 1990s in Germany, community libraries have taken off in North America. In Canada, for example, there is some variation of little libraries, lending libraries and/or book exchanges in Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, Kamloops, Prince George, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg... and many smaller communities!

The idea is quite simple... build a weatherproof bookcase and then stock it with some books. I came across a site which had all sorts of ideas for repurposing different items and converting them into a bookcase/book shelter: mailboxes, microwaves, bar fridges, and old newspaper vending machines (brilliant!).

Community members can come and borrow a book (no fees, no sign-out) and then return that book when they've finished, or place a new book in the Little Library. It works. And it's immensely popular. Not to mention, it has some serious benefits:

• Develop community and pride in community especially if a group of people are involved;
• Bring us closer together as many of us become more isolated through technology;
• Encourage us to walk around the neighbourhood which in turn promotes health and even safety;
• Most importantly they promote literacy and the love of reading and books.

What's not to like about community libraries? Absolutely nothing... they are a win-win-win initiative and my only regret is that we don't have one in our neighbourhood. The Little Libraries website for Nanaimo has an email address to which one can write and request a Little Library... and... I wonder... It would be a Small Step to building some community spirit if we were to host one... Are there any downsides?

Little Library arson victim

Well... a few of the Little Libraries were arson victims... and this is not unique to our community. Community lending libraries and/or book exchanges in Vancouver have also been vandalized in recent years. But... is that any reason not to host one?

It seems, however, that one organization, Little Free Libraries, is creating quite a stir. A librarian in Toronto wrote a critique of the non-profit organization in the Journal of Radical Librarianship. Huh... she has a few bones to pick with that specific organization... not the book exchanges themselves. OK, well that's good to know. Although the librarian did note that the selection in most little libraries is quite pathetic... like Dummies Guide to Windows 2000.

Huh... maybe I should do some research and scope out a few little libraries in our community and see what is actually on the shelves. Although... I guess it's like anything... they need maintenance and someone to pull out the Windows 2000 books... On the other hand, the Vancouver Island Regional Library is a sponsor of our Little Libraries... so it can't be all bad.

We'll see how it shakes out. I've taken one Small Step and sent an email to our local Little Libraries and asked if they are building any during the time of Covid-19... stay tuned for updates...

Books, Books and More Books

I love books. I'm not going to call myself an addict but... I really, really love books.

My love affair with books started when I was a kid. For the longest time, I kept one of my favourites... I am a Bunny by Ole Risom with illustrations by Richard Scarry.

It was quite tattered and apparently 3-year-old-me thought Nicholas the Bunny needed glasses because on each page, I drew a set of glasses on him. Not sure why... since no one in my family wore glasses, least of all me! But there you go... don't give a kid a book and a pen...

When I entered grade school, I was introduced to the wonderful world of Scholastic Book Services.

Favourite horse stories

Oh my goodness... the flyers and order forms would get handed out at school in the fall and spring and I would peruse all the offerings and make my selections - usually animal stories... particularly horse stories. I still have three of my favourites: Old Bones: the Wonder Horse, Blitz and Blanco: The Legend of the White Stallion.

But Scholastic Book Services cost money and so my Mom introduced me to the public library. Whoa... soooo many books! At the time, our public library had a super cool kids section. It was a big room that was almost two stories high. A set of stairs led to an upper level which was a balcony that ran around three sides of the room. There were books up top and... the area underneath the balcony was made of up of several shallow cave-like chambers. The ceiling was so low that adults had to duck down to get into each chamber. There were book shelves on three sides of each chamber and... it was the coolest thing ever for a kid... an Aladdin's cave of undiscovered treasure.

I would usually totter out of the library with a massive stack of books and gobble them up over the next week or two. Loved the library.

At the same time... I was a relatively easy kid when it came to Christmas and birthdays... just buy me books: Hardy Boys, Fury of Broken Wheel Ranch, anything by Rutherford Montgomery, The Black Stallion...

Library card catalogue - how times have changed

As I moved through the education system, I dabbled in the school libraries... also good, but not as memorable... and then came university.

I loved the twisting rabbit-warrens of UBC's Main Library stacks but the university library didn't really stock a lot of fiction (unless it was 100+ years old!).

While attending UBC, I never got connected with the the Vancouver Public Library system. I think I went there once and requested a library card. Turns out that people living in UBC dorms were not considered Vancouver tax-payers sooo... no pay taxes, no get library card.

It became a bit of a moot point because I started earning some money and was able to feed my book appetite. Science fiction... westerns... mysteries... history novels... I acquired my own library at home.

The only problem was... I moved a lot... on average once every year... and after a while, packing up all those books became a chore. Not to mention I was running out of bookshelf space. And so I'd regularly declutter my books. I don't have my Cadfael books anymore. Nor my Dick Francis, Sharpe, Ramage, Pern, Star Trek, Stainless Steel Rat, Anne Perry or Louis L'Amour books. I still bought and read a lot of books... I just didn't keep them for very long. Kind of... errr... disposable convenience... ***cough*** (The irony of this is not lost on me...).

After a while, my book-buying habit became a bit expensive. Books aren't exactly cheap... a novel nowadays costs around $20. I used to travel a lot and passing through an airport was dangerous for me. I'd wander through the Virgin or Relay bookstores behind security and easily see a dozen books that looked super interesting. Even though I had at least two or three books with me, I would usually end up buying another one or two.

Somewhere along the way, I had forgotten about libraries... but not really. I completed online applications for a library card in Prince George and, later, in Calgary... but I never set foot in the actual buildings and definitely never borrowed a book. I had gotten out of the library habit and established a book-buying habit. Which was fine when I had enough disposable cash to satisfy my book cravings... but not so fine when we went on a year-long sabbatical and found ourselves on a budget.

One of MANY Bookie Monsters out there

My book-buying was cut off and I went into serious book-withdrawal. I became the Cookie Monster of books - The Bookie Monster. [Believe it or not... I thought I had come up with something new and cool with that little rhyme but... Bookie Monster is already a "thing"!]

I bought an e-book reader, figuring that e-books were easier to schlep around and less expensive but... honestly... reading an e-book is not the same as a real book. And e-books, even though they are cheaper than real books, are not exactly "cheap".

I discovered AbeBooks - an online bookstore where I could buy second-hand books from all over the world. Better, but still not great... not for someone with as voracious an appetite as myself.

During our sabbatical, we moved to the Island and... at that point... I rediscovered the public library. A whole new world opened up. I was amazed to discover that libraries have come a loonnnnggg way since the days of card catalogues and microfiche.

Everything is online... even inter-library loans... It's super-convenient and utterly magical. Our library system is even more magical because it's a regional library. We have three physical libraries in our city, but they are not the be all and end all. There are three dozen libraries in other communities that feed our regional library. That's a lot of books. And it's so easy... go online, search for the book I'm interested in and request it be delivered to my local branch. Bing. Done. The book gets delivered... sometimes within a few days... other times... a few months.

Cover - Atomic Habits
by James Clear

That's the only thing... getting books via the library requires patience. This is not going to feed the instant gratification monster within me. Because even though we have 36+ library branches... other people have discovered the library too and the hold lists can be long. Particularly if the book is new and hot.

For example, I put a hold on Atomic Habits (James Clear) a few weeks/months back. I had seen it in an airport bookstore and took a picture of the cover (my new habit) and then added it to my "To Read" list. When I got home, I requested it via the library. Except our library system "only" has 12 copies... and there are 119 holds... of which I am #37... sigh... Patience, Young Grasshopper, patience.

On the other hand, receiving an email from the library informing me that a book I've been waiting for is ready to be picked up... ooohhh... it's like Christmas!! I can't wait to scamper to the library and bring the book home and start reading.

I use the hold system with gusto... I currently have nine books on hold. The only thing is... sometimes a bunch of them come in at around the same time and I find myself dealing with an over-abundance of riches. I generally tend to have more than one book on the go at any one time but... even I can get overwhelmed by the pressure of reading four or five books in three weeks. I am learning to rein in my book ordering bug...

There is one more thing that I like about the library... I know that getting a book through the library means it's going to be a well-used book. It's going to be read by more than one set of eyes (mine). When I buy a book from the bookstore... I will often only read it once and then let it go by donating it to a thrift store. It might get read again... or maybe not. Thrift store bookshelves do NOT use the Dewey Decimal system... and trying to find a specific book is like hunting for the proverbial needle in a haystack... with no guarantee that the needle you are seeking is even IN the haystack! Given how many books get donated to thrift stores... it's only understandable that at some point... books end up going to the landfill.

You see... books are incredibly hard to recycle due to the glue in the binding. Our city's recycling system accepts magazines, catalogues and phone books (ummm... glue in binding?) but not paperbacks or hardcovers. I know that some cities accept paperback books for recycling but not if they have ever gotten wet or if the paper has turned brown. This is a bit of a problem... and so I am trying to emphasize the Reduce and Reuse aspects of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle".

I still buy the occasional new physical book but only when I absolutely CANNOT wait for it and expect to use it long-term. I do buy e-books a bit more frequently and I still get some second-hand books via AbeBooks. If I'm going to buy books though, most of them come via thrift stores or garage sales. They are cheap and I don't feel bad about reading them and letting them go again, back into the pool of second-hand books from whence they came. But... ultimately... the library is my biggest source of reading material.

The 2018 value of our library cards

The Board of our regional library has an annual report in which, amongst other things, they report on the "value of a library card".

In 2018, based on the number of users and the value of materials borrowed... the average value of a library card was $661.

That number intrigued me and I once counted up the number of books I borrowed in a year and my value was well over $800. That's $800 that stayed in my pocket!

In many ways... getting books from the library ticks a bunch of boxes.

• It's good for me and my finances (more books available to read; less money spent on books, less square footage devoted to book storage, less hassle moving, teaches me patience).
• It's good for the environment (more reads/book).
• It's good for my community (more library patrons=bigger budget=more books).
• It might, however, not be so good for authors (less books sold).

I haven't even touched on all the other services offered through our local library: DVDs, CDs, audio books, magazines, podcasts, online language courses, research services, internet access, study space etc, etc... Heck, our library even has a puzzle table where there is always a 1000 piece puzzle on the go... cool! And it's all... FREE!***

For me, reconnecting with the pubic library system is one small step in living sustainably. It might not be as convenient as ordering a book via Amazon Prime but... I'll trade that for sustainable living... in this instance at least!


***Well... as long as you are a resident of the city in which the library is located. Which means somewhere along the line you are paying property taxes which then go toward supporting your local library. So not really "free" but... why not max out as much value from property taxes as possible by wringing out as much use from the library as possible!