What’s up with my nightstand?

One of my first thoughts when it became apparent that I would be moving from Lincoln to Columbus was to ask about the Columbus public library system.

What I discovered was less than exciting. Columbus’s library is approximately the size of the branch library I used as a pre-teen—the library that I abandoned for the main library once my bookish appetite outgrew endless re-readings of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Furthermore, the Columbus library has a lending limit of 15 titles, a far cry from the 150 I’ve acclimated myself to at the Lincoln Public Libraries.

Taking into account these variables, and considering the goal I’ve been working on for four years (of reading every book in my Lincoln branch library), I decided to investigate the costs of purchasing an out-of-county subscription to the Lincoln Public Libraries.

I’d previously calculated the “worth” of my local (Lincoln) library at more than $5000 per year (using the cost of purchasing my average annual usage rather than borrowing it from the library). Compare to that, the $60 cost of purchasing an annual subscription is chump change.

With an annual subscription in hand, I will drive into Lincoln once every six weeks to load up on the library’s limit of 150 items. Each of these items will be checked out for three weeks and then renewed electronically for an additional three weeks.

This is unlikely to change my standard library usage by much, as my average is slightly higher than 150 items per 6 weeks. However, it will alter my library usage PATTERNS significantly.

While living in Lincoln, I was used to visiting the library once or twice a week, checking out ten to twenty items per visit. I returned items as soon as I had read them, meaning that I rarely had more than fifty items checked out at a time (except during that one summer when I intentionally kept books around in order to max out my card at 167—with 17 in the drop box). I had no system for what books I checked out when. I merely checked out what looked interesting at the moment—and if my reading mood changed, I could always take a ten-minute run to the library to check out something new.

Now, with the library an hour and a half away—and limiting myself to one visit per six weeks—I need a system to ensure that I have enough variety to keep me interested for the entire six weeks.

So, in true Type A fashion, I’ve developed a library-visit rubric for myself.

During each library visit, I will check out:

• 75 children’s picture books
• 6 juvenile fiction books (includes both Middle grade and YA fiction titles)
• 15 juvenile fiction books (12 of which will be exploring six of the fifty states, as I intend to take a brief book tour of the 50 states through juvenile titles in 2011)
  14 adult fiction titles (6 Christian, 6 secular, and 2 which classify as “literature”)
• 15 adult nonfiction titles (at least 2 in each of the following categories: theology/Christian living, biography, craft/project, and cookbooks)
• 15 compact discs
• 5 DVDs

That takes me to 145 titles. I imagine that the majority of these will be predetermined—picked before I even walk into the library, possibly even placed on hold so all I have to do is check them out. The final five are my wildcard picks, to be picked at the library simply based on what I feel like.

In less than 600 words, that’s what’s up with my nightstand.

Tune in tomorrow to see what’s ON my nightstand after my first visit following the above rubric.