Do you have a college library nearby? Use it!

[Laura K (NC)]

Our local public library stinks, but man, our local university library is awesome. We can check out books for $50/year, and these aren't just any old books. I have, at my house, a translation of a work by Pascal that was published in 1849, and has a library stamp on it that says "Oct. 20,1897." Another book I have here was rebound. It's publishing date was 1851. I have been able to access so many rare, acclaimed books that I could never have otherwise, and it has been so well worth the money to join.

I highly recommend having access to a college library for a student's research papers. If you don't join you can still do research in the stacks, but you won't be able to take them home. The college students here don't seem to check out books, so the books I have needed have always been available. They must do the majority of their research there at the library.

We will use the college library for some of the books next year in the ancients cycle. I wanted my son to read some Confucius, but didn't want to pay the $12 for a copy that we'd have forever. We can keep the books for a month, which is long enough for most books he will be reading next year.

[runningirl71]

Yes! We do! Actually, dh works at the University so we get all the benefits but for free! And the really cool thing is, he can order books on interlibrary loan, and the search engine for that is national! Really cool! So, if I can't get it at the public library, I call dh up to help me out!

[Gwen in VA]

We have one but we don't want to pay the $50 annual fee.

So we go to the college library, poke around, find the "really good ones," and then request the books from our local library via interlibrary loan. Cheap, cheap!

The weird thing is that the local LAW SCHOOL library lets us get library cards for free! Isn't that weird?

[Kendall]

I second the recommendation to check into local college libraries. Ours also has a separate library for education students with curriculum, teachers materials, children's books, educational games, etc

[Zoraida]

Yes, in fact we live across the street from our university and my husband teaches there. At least two or three days a week we will go to the library's reference room and just sit and get some serious studying done. It keeps the kids away from the distraction of computers, tv, and nintendo.

Blessings

Zoraida

[Jan P.]

What an excellent idea! I seem to be taking my dc to various ballet and art classes all day long, and the local community college library would be a great place to study in between the performing arts curriculum! Actually my kiddos would rather curl up on their bed to study, but I do agree that the library has less distractions. My ds is a student there too, so I guess if I had to have a book then he could check it out.

Blessings,
Jan P.

[sixlilmonkeys]

Thank you - need to check ours out :o

[Kareni]

Our state university is nearby. Any adult with a driver's license from this state can check out books at no charge whatsoever (our tax dollars at work!). In addition, the main library on campus has a curriculum collection (due to the presence of an education program on campus) and a children's collection (presumably for student teaching purposes or for children's literature studies). I've found the collection to be particularly valuable when wishing to check out older authors such as Helene Guerber (rather than having the recent reprints, we've checked out books with copyright dates of 1900).

Regards,
Kareni

[jonesloonybin]

Wow! That is nice. Here we have to pay $100 a year and you can only check out for 15 days.

[Laura K (NC)]

nt

[Sahamamama]

... perhaps the OP could post it on the General Forum board, so more people would see it? :001_smile: