Book Musing: How to decide? | Challenge Update

Picture Taken By: Me

How do you decide which books to buy? Or do you mostly pick to support your local public library for reading books?

For me, it is usually like this:

1. Read at library.
2. Put on my birthday/Christmas wish list.
3. Buy it whenever I can.

Though, sometimes it is like this:

1. See review on a blog or while searching the Internet.
2. Put it on my wish list, if the review is good.
3. Buy it whenever I can.

As one of the many adults who doesn't have a job and still living and assisting their parents around their house, I don't have that much money to spare to buy that many books. So what do I do to get the books I review, I support my public library because that is usually how your local government decides how much funds your public library gets.

How do I know this? I know because I volunteer at my public library, and the librarians told me that they keep track of these things: how many patrons come in and out, how many swap books/videos patrons check out, how many regular books and videos patrons check out, how many volunteers volunteer, the amount of total hours all the volunteers do together, how many employees they have, how many hours and days they are open during a certain length of time, how many books weren't return, how many replacement books were ordered, total amount of the money they earned (late fees, replacement card fees, etc.), how many people show up for their programs, and many more things. >.<

Another way they get funds is donations (books and money) from patrons, local organizations, and other things. For my library, they get donations from patrons and the volunteer membership organization, Friends of the Library, donates books/money towards the library. It is usually the Friends of the Library who do the fund-raising and helps with free programs for my library. So, if you see books for sell at the library or anything for fund-raising at your library, check to see where the money goes to. Helping out your library like that is usually what helps them get funds to books that people don't return, new books, get missing books in a series, and many fun programs - like my library does with Family Fun Night. :D

It is the library's, book review blog's, and authors who don't know when to end series (the ones who have 15+ books and still are ongoing) fault that my book wish list is so long. Luckily, I still have my library, who is usually pretty good with requests and have a lot more books than me, so I can still read (and review) books for fun.

So how do you get your books? How do you decide which books to buy? And, is there anyone else but me who uses (supports) their public library to review books a lot?

Picture Taken By: Me

For the Goodreads 2011 Reading Challenge, I have finished 1 book out of the 65. You can see the post below. :X

That's pretty much the only challenge I have completed. :S

Oh, I'm going to try to make little image headers (of pictures I have taken) for blog posts, so it will be prettier. :X Since I'm the one that took the pictures, please don't use them without permission. :) Another note, those of you who have been in snow may know the reason why I made that as the challenge image. :D Also, the font name is on there just in case if you want to use that font for your own headers. :D