Not too long ago, there was a story in local TV news about how people were turning to second hand clothing shops like Crossroads and the Berkeley Public Library to save money given the current state of the economy. Theory says it’s expected that as people have less spending cash, they turn towards alternative cheaper items. I don’t know if I believe the Lipstick Indicator, though.

As for me, there were two books I was interested in reading and had planned to buy them from Amazon, generally the best place to buy books next to Costco (if they carry the book), but I never got around to purchasing them. I decided to check the San Francisco Public Library’s online catalog and sure enough, the two books I wanted were available at a nearby branch library. Apparently, it’s been over four years since I last went to the library because I was no longer in the system and had to get a new library card.

The other day, my friends came over to watch the Big Game and I was telling one friend, who has been reading a whole lot of political books from the public library, that I had also just got a new library card and before we knew it, two of my friends were showing us their new library cards with imprinted art designed by local children.

The public library also has items beyond books like the wide range of current magazines you can browse at the branch, or issues from previous months for checkout. You can often find recent DVDs to check out like 522 of the DVD/VCDs released this year including TV Season DVDs in San Francisco. And if you’re a Berkeley resident, the Berkeley Public Library has 1188 tools in their catalog (yes, physical tools). Sadly, access to the famous Rosetta Stone language learning software was discontinued at the Palo Alto Public Library (no residency requirement there).

Aside from the other items, useful conveniences include requesting that a particular book be sent to your local branch from another branch library and returning the book at any branch in the system.

I was reminded that the library is a great way to save money from books or items you may read/view/use only once and on top of that, it’s also environmentally friendly and space saving. There are some books on my bookshelf I should have borrowed instead of purchased.

Look into becoming a friend of your public library, if you haven’t yet.