20 Feb Libraries rock!

Libraries Rock!

That may not be the most appealing statement among those trying to make money selling books, but there’s more to it than that. There’s saving trees, saving ink, and test driving a book before buying it. That last one must surely irk large publishers. But what about walking into a library—back when we could (remember?)—and that smell of old paper and tired flatulence; sharing a public refuge with scholars and homeless alike. Rooms full of knowledge!

I always have at least a borrowed book or two going at a time. My five year-old daughter, many more. Right now I have Epictetus’s Discourses, Kafka short stories and Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind on my bedside table. Two of them, I’ll admit, are purchased, but the third is borrowed. The irony is the one I’m borrowing is the only author of the three still alive and trying to make a buck writing. So unfair.

I wondered what I’d prefer from an author’s standpoint, to either sell 1,000 books on my own or to have my book in just 100 libraries AND solicited to readers by 100 librarians. Thinking only a tad further about this, it becomes quite obvious the latter is the way to go. A much wider network can be cast! My book’s in two libraries so far… 98 to go.

I want give a shout out to my local library: Norfolk County Public Library. Not only do they enable my family to borrow all the books we can handle without having to buy them all—which would eventually fill every wall in one’s home floor to ceiling, but they were kind enough to interview me about the writing process and my book, Datapocalypse. The video is embedded below. I hope you check it out!

So thank a Librarian today! Just don’t hug them; maybe one of those arm bump things people are doing nowadays may suffice.

Peace, love, datapocalypse.
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