Shhhh! Quiet Please!

I love love love my local library. As I endeavour to save money, reduce the amount of 'stuff' we have in the apartment and reduce our impact on the Earth and her resources, I have been turning to little Kew library for my book fix. At first, I was sad to find such great books but then have to give them back and not be able to look at them sitting pretty on our bookshelf. I felt like in the snapshot of your life your bookshelf gives you there would be a giant gap over these years, you know? But then, I don't have all the books I've ever owned (see previous post about Anne Rice and the Trading Post!) - they have been left behind in countries visited, loaned and never returned, sold on ebay and donated to charity. Hopefully they've all been read by lots and lots of different people and have stories of their own now.

I put my first 'request to purchase' into the library without great expectations, but have since gone nuts with that function. The guys at the library are great! Here are the books the library has purchased at my request:

I have another 3 book requests currently being processed too! Snaps to Kew library. (And I couldn't help feeling a bit proud when they bought 3 copies of one of the books - one for each of the libraries in the group! I felt like I had contributed to the greater good of the public collection, just a little bit!)

Here's what I have on loan right now:

Hmm, now to ask the head librarian what on earth this represents, it puzzles me every time I go past the building...