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great alternative to Kindle
Sep. 25th, 2010 11:03 amFor a while, I've wondered if I should get a Kindle, or maybe an iPad. I buy a lot of books either online or at local bookstores, but I tend to move a lot and don't like carrying them around. Also, I typically only read books once. Well, to be perfectly honest, less than once. I think about half the books I own I've only made it about a third of the way through, although in principle I intend to finish most of them. I guess that gets more and more unlikely the more new books I buy before I've finished reading the old ones, though. Anyway, the point is... I've found this new service that I like, that seems like a better alternative than either Kindle or a bookstore.
You just put your name and address down on a card, and then you get access to an entire building of books, just as if they were sitting on your own bookshelf, except you don't have to use up the space in your apartment to store them! You can check as many as you want out whenever you want for free, and then bring them back when you're done reading them. They also provide a nice relaxing, quiet space for you to sit down and read them, if you want it (unlike a real bookstore, where you feel a paranoid feeling like someone is looking over your shoulder ready to "catch you" and throw you out if you squat down for too long in the aisle and read a chapter of a book you're thinking about buying). If you need more time, you just renew, and if you forget and turn it in a day or two late, you only pay about 10 cents. The best part is, when you're reading them, they feel and look exactly like normal books, not like a computer screen. They're calling it "The Public Library". Brilliant name for it. Ok, I lied, it's not new! But it's fucking awesome =)
The public library here in Champaign also has free DVD and books-on-tape rentals, I've been getting a different books-on-tape every couple weeks to listen to while I'm driving to Chicago and back. For some reason at my library, they don't even have any limits at all on how many books you can check out at once... and when you check stuff out, you just scan your card, you don't even have to talk to a person. (When I was growing up, the library in my town used to have like a 5 book limit or something... now I'm wondering whether that is more normal or what they have here.) Seems really strange that they have no limit here... like, if you came in one day with a wheel barrow and checked out like 100 books, I wonder if anybody would look at you strange or stop you! But that's what they said when I asked, no limits. I can't remember for sure if I asked about DVD's and audio-tapes also, although I think it is even no limit for those.
You just put your name and address down on a card, and then you get access to an entire building of books, just as if they were sitting on your own bookshelf, except you don't have to use up the space in your apartment to store them! You can check as many as you want out whenever you want for free, and then bring them back when you're done reading them. They also provide a nice relaxing, quiet space for you to sit down and read them, if you want it (unlike a real bookstore, where you feel a paranoid feeling like someone is looking over your shoulder ready to "catch you" and throw you out if you squat down for too long in the aisle and read a chapter of a book you're thinking about buying). If you need more time, you just renew, and if you forget and turn it in a day or two late, you only pay about 10 cents. The best part is, when you're reading them, they feel and look exactly like normal books, not like a computer screen. They're calling it "The Public Library". Brilliant name for it. Ok, I lied, it's not new! But it's fucking awesome =)
The public library here in Champaign also has free DVD and books-on-tape rentals, I've been getting a different books-on-tape every couple weeks to listen to while I'm driving to Chicago and back. For some reason at my library, they don't even have any limits at all on how many books you can check out at once... and when you check stuff out, you just scan your card, you don't even have to talk to a person. (When I was growing up, the library in my town used to have like a 5 book limit or something... now I'm wondering whether that is more normal or what they have here.) Seems really strange that they have no limit here... like, if you came in one day with a wheel barrow and checked out like 100 books, I wonder if anybody would look at you strange or stop you! But that's what they said when I asked, no limits. I can't remember for sure if I asked about DVD's and audio-tapes also, although I think it is even no limit for those.
