DH got all seven of the new shelves up! Now I have to (get to?) transfer and arrange the books from the old living room now workshop/study to the guest den. There are a lot of books.
Susan Wise Bauer’s resent blog quoting an article about text book creation makes me glad we do own so many books, especially with the Percival Blakeney Academy amen to that and the Handmade Homeschool musings on reading and writing made me wonder about my own library.
What books do I own and why? I’m about to be lugging them down the hall. There are lots of paper backed novels from my teen years (including college) usually things the local library didn’t carry, like ALL the Anne of Green Gables books, lots of Lord Peter Whimsey mysteries, George MacDonald edited for modern reader pot boilers, C. S. Lewis essays, biographies of favorite writers, Madeleine L’Engle books as they were being published. Old math books that DH actually does refer to when he cooks up engineering projects, chemistry texts that I can’t bear to give up yet, intro to Greek books from out stint at TEDS, LOTs of how to knit books,sewing reference, scrapbooking magazines, gardening reference, and now various homeschooling how-tos or children’s literature that the library doesn’t carry. Books being published that I just had to know What-Happens-Next are also on the shelf (the latter Harry Potters, the Queen of Attolia, for some reason I did wait for the library copy of the King of Attolia, although DH kept getting dibs on it, so I read it aloud to him so we both could find out What-Happens-Next)
So, with South Eastern Mass public libraries mostly linked up into an interlibrary loan group that is as fast as Amazon, I usually get books out of the library rather than buy them (even second hand, unless I just Have to have it…) but I do seem to buy a lot of reference, because my projects last longer than the one month borrow period; if I’m going to be peering at something daily, possibly dribbling coffee on it, possibly ruining the spine, I should buy it anyway, I’m courting fines.
Not that I don’t have lots of fines any way. I keep money in the library backpack pocket with the library cards so I can always cheerfully pay fines and keep the books flowing (and being stored on someone else’s shelf when I’m done!) DH calls it our Homeschooling Book Club Membership Dues, the librarians think we are refreshingly goofy, and always let us know about fines gently and kindly.
But with town budget cuts, many of the participating libraries are beginning not to send out their collections on interlibrary loan, so I may begin to have to buy more living books for the homeschool myself. I wonder what books will be sent away to make room, and which ones will continue to board here?
Maybe we’ll just buy more shelves.