Today I didn't go out for a walk, and as it is raining, I'm planning to stay inside. It is dark out there.
Yesterday I wrote some words about the local library system. I'm a big customer: since April 22, 2008, I have borrowed 1420 items, mostly books, but also some cds.
There is a limit of 40 items one can borrow. And there is also a limit of 30 reservations. I have been most of the time maxing out on these, going to the library at least once a week to return items and borrow some more. It is not bad, but sometimes I wish the limits would be a little higher.
But anyway, the independence day in Finland is coming up, and weekend ahead. If only the weather would be better for spending some time outside.
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A moment of profound silence followed.
4 hours ago
6 comments:
Juha, I had always guessed you are a really avid reader, and I am surrounded by such people, but my goodness - 40 books I wouldn't manage to read in two months! And you do this additionally to your photography, giving you several 100.000 images in the last year, plus daily blogging with several images per post... My hat is off in awe!
@Markus: Well, many of these books have been for the children to read, and of course not all books are such that it takes a long time to read them. Photography books or short collections of poems for example...
And not watching the television or subscribing to newspapers helps to have time for reading books. I'm not sure what is the average amount of time people use for these activities, but it must be more than a hour per day.
Juha, I had left out of consideration that a reading father most probably has reading kids... same here. And TV is restricted to a minimum here as well. But in Bavaria a small town library is neither that well equipped nor connected to a network, so while the kids use it sporadically, I did not find that many interesting books there.
@Markus: Here in the Helsinki metropolitan area we have a good system, as the libraries in the metropolitan cities are networked together, and there is a web interface to make reservations, do renewals (up to three times), etc.
These days the libraries have also items which one would typically find in professional or university libraries, such as PhD dissertations and monographs, especially in areas such as societal wellbeing, leadership/management, etc.
I was simply astonished at the number of books that you check out and the fact that you wished the limits to be higher! :) I remember checking out quite a few books when my older son was a young and avid reader. The younger was never much into reading.
I used to visit the library, here in Charlotte, a lot, but lately, have been listening to audio books and using Kindle, but it might be nice to go and browse the library for some photography books, perhaps.
With budget cuts, the libraries are open limited hours and days, but still doable at lunchtime, I suppose.
@Paul: Luckily the libraries seem to be doing ok here in Finland, although there have been cuts as well. But they have implemented a lot of automation and self-service, and maybe this allows them to survive.
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