How to Get Free Books: Part 3

I've been a bad blogger, and I missed my Free Books post last Thursday. But, I'm back today, so we're going to jump right in. I know I've been scarce lately, but I've had some things going on at home and I have all sorts of great posts planned as soon as life settles down a bit.

Anyway, moving on....

This feature is dedicated to showing readers how to get free books (or at least cheaper books) to help supplement tight book buying budgets (without badgering publishers for copies).

Here's links to catch up if you missed anything. Otherwise, the new stuff's below!
Inspiration
Part 1: Blogs
Part 2: Trading
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How to Get Free Books: Part 3, Libraries

Yeah, I know this one sounds a little obvious. But stick with me on this one. Libraries are an excellent source for free books. Although if, like me, you have problems with turning the books in on time, overdue fees make them not so free sometimes (haha).

Libraries a great thing. With thousands of free books on the shelves, and all you need is a library card to be able to take them home for your very own for a few weeks. Libraries are a great option if your book buying budget is small. And not just because you can read books for free.

How many times have you spent hard earned money on a book and then got partway into it and realized you hated/disliked it? This has happened to me a few times and it's very disappointing. So now if there's a book/movie/cd/whatever that I'm not sure if I'm going to like, I get it from the library first. I give it a "trial run" with the library copy, and if it seems like something I'd like to own, I'll go buy a copy at that point.

Now of course this only works if your library is fairly well stocked. But a lot of libraries aren't. I know both the college campus library and the local library where I went to college in Idaho were both fairly lacking in anything published less than 2 years ago. If you have a similar situation, I'd highly recommend talking to your librarian(s) whether they have an inter-library loan program. Here in Northern California we use one called LINK+ where we can also check out materials that belong to colleges and libraries throughout the state of California. My university library had one as well, and I was able to get a lot of books for my young adult class from that one.

And here's one last reason libraries are great, other than just getting free books. The answer is library book sales. And while the books aren't necessarily free, they're usually fairly cheap. Plus anything you buy usually goes to help the library pay for more new books, so everyone wins, right?

Our library has sales twice a year, and it's something I look forward to. You can pick up hardcovers for $1.00, paperbacks for $.50 and children's books for $.10. Sometimes you have to wade through a lot of junk to find treasures, but I've found some great stuff at library sales.

So that concludes today's How to Get Free Books post. I promise I'll remember to post next week so I don't leave you hanging again. :) As always, if you have tips of your own to suggest, feel free to leave me a comment or send me an email. I'd love to hear from you!