I sense you’ve been in a frugal frame of mind, Kitty! Knitting charity gifts, doing your own laundry, and promoting library materials for those on a budget.

Seriously, I’ve always wondered why more people haven’t discovered the library as a source for music, movies and, yes, books! It makes perfect sense to check out movies instead of renting them, since you’re not planning on keeping them anyway.

Checking out music is a great way to find out if you really want to add this particular CD to your music collection, or if you’re willing to fork over cash to download the tunes. Same goes for books, unless you really love the author or topic. (Although I do have a friend with germ-phobia who had to stop checking out books at the library because of all those other hands that had touched them! Guess that’s another reason to buy instead of borrow.)

It is really interesting that hard economic times make for boom-times at institutions like libraries, community colleges, vo-techs, etc., but it still seems like these are some of the first places that quick-fix budget-cutters would look to trim funding.

Personally, like Reggie Jet I’ve found the library to be an awesome resource to build my iTunes collection without having to resort to either buying overpriced new CDs or stealing music from shady online sources. The Metropolitan Library System has a pretty great CD collection in wildly varied genres, and as far as I know (although I’m not a copyright lawyer) it’s totally legal to add them to your iTunes collection and build a great listening library of your own.

Reggie Jet, you need to give your friend some hand sanitizer we use it all the time at the circulation desk.
And Chris, I want to remind everyone that Metropolitan Library System right here in Oklahoma County has all these branches, http://www4.mls.lib.ok.us/mls/locations.htm

[...] the OkieReads blog pointed out, several other media outlets have recently noted increased library usage [...]