Voracious R-eat-er

Jasper Fforde, one of my absolute favorite authors, came out with a fifth book in his Thursday Next series, which was finally published in paperback and released last month. It has been a while since I last read the first four books, so I decided to read them again as a refresher before sinking into the new one. (I realize I should be working on my homework with Finals so soon upon me, but I just don't feel like being responsible.)

Last night, I had just made my way through the first one and started on the second. I set the first book aside on the bed, and my cat, Harley, decided to lay down next to it. He always likes to lay close to my books. I figured it's because he wants attention, and he sees me stare at those things for hours on end. I pet him for a minute, and then went back to reading.

Suddenly, I hear this horrible tearing noise. Harley had reached over and chewed a big chunk out of the first two pages of the book!!!! I got the pieces out, and was able to tape them back in. Luckily there was minimal damage, and the pages were just the reviews and bibliographic information, not the actual text.

I guess he took the idea of having a voracious appetite for books too literally.

Common Sense FAIL!!

Last night, I was attending an online class session for one of my Library Science classes (and letting my mind wander, as usual) when I stumbled upon this:

http://failblog.org/2008/06/04/book-rental-fail/

The link connects to FailBlog, an icanhascheezburger lol site, with a photo of an interesting posting.

The pictured post says:

book rental service?
was just thinking. my sister does -alot- of reading, and spends like $1000 a year on just books alone. most of them she reads once then never looks at again. is there any kind of like…video rental store but for books? would make things alot cheaper, plus once one person had read one the next person can get enjoyment from it etc

This reminded me of last week, when one of my coworkers told me about some Internet site that she thought I might want to check out. She said it was "like Netflix, but for books. See, you rent books, which are delivered to you in the mail, and when you finish, you send them back and they mail you a new one."

I have to admit, I thought she was pulling my leg, but it is absolutely for real!! The site is BookSwim.com, and the cheapest plan starts at $14.99/month for 2 books at a time. There are testimonials from users saying how much money they have saved by using this service, rather than buying or borrowing books.

Seriously?!?!?! Do they really live that far away from a library that the cost of gas to and from is more than $15 a month? I've lived in a big West Coast city and a small Midwest town, and in both places I have never been more than 5 miles away from a library. And I can check out an unlimited amount of books for 3 to 4 weeks at a time, and renew them online or over the phone. All of this FOR FREE!!!! If I am late returning them, it never costs all that much money. And when you consider all the additional services of a library, such as music CDs, movies, events, etc., how could anyone think this a good deal?

I just don't understand it. Our society will pay for anything, even something they can already get for no cost! We already pay for the library through our taxes, so why not get our money's worth and use it???? Maybe I'm biased as a lifelong library lover and librarian-in-training, but this just seems completely ridiculous.