Lending Library? Or not so much?
Posted February 28, 2011
on:Chances are, if you’re reading this, you love books.
You probably also own a lot of books.
And your friends know you love books and own more than a handful of them.
It’s inevitable.
Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but one day, someday soon, someone is going to say “can I borrow that?”
What kind of lending library is your private collection?
a) I’m happy to lend any book I own to any of my friends.
b) My closest friends get lending privileges, often more than they really want.
c) Some of my books I’m happy to lend out, with other titles if you want to read it, I’ll buy you a copy instead of lending it.
d) my books! no touch! get away from my stuff!
And just for kicks, because it’s happened to all of us, what’s been your worst experience lending out a book?
20 Responses to "Lending Library? Or not so much?"
I’m somewhere between option B and option C. I have a lot of books, and if my close friends are interested in them, I generally don’t have a problem lending them out. Unless they’ve been signed by the author, or are favorites, or I don’t want them ‘messed up.’ I’m kind of particular about not breaking the spine of books and not messing up the edges, and I know which friends to trust and which not. *grin*
I actually received a personal library kit last birthday – it has a date stamp and checkout cards and everything. Uber-cute!
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Good question. I am happy to lend books to most people I am going to see again soon, who I have some trust with. Although it doesn’t come up much with my friends, since our collections overlap, and otherwise most books I recommend I read out of the library, and they’ll have to borrow it from there as well. Most books I actually lend out are graphic novels. My husband’s set of Sandman has gone the rounds more than once.
The only really bad experience I had lending out a book was a textbook I lent to a classmate very early on in college. It took her forever to get it back to me, and it came back a mess. I can’t remember for sure, but I think she wrote in it! Truly odd. Turned out, we didn’t become friends. 😉
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I used to loan people books aggressively, saying “You’d like this a lot.” After losing three or four books this way — not because they loved the books, but because they never bothered to read them — I’ve given up.
If someone asked to borrow a book, I’d do so happily. But that never comes up for some reason.
On the other hand, most of the books I currently own are up for trade on Paperbackswap, so in essence, I have a very large one-way lending library.
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I am always so reluctant to lend books. I love books, and I make sure to keep them in pristine shape. As such, if I do lend them to friends, I make sure they know that I do NOT dog-ear pages and that I treat them with the utmost respect. I really have to trust someone to lend them a book of mine!
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My girlfriends sister is allowed to borrow mine. She wraps them in a cloth to keep them safe, so I trust her.
I have lent out a book or two to others, but they always come back in some state of ruin and that ticks me off.
There is a standing rule that if the spine is cracked…you buy me a new one.
I’m strict with my books.
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Mine is pretty much a no-lend policy. I have two really close friends and my wife who are all book lovers who take very good care of their books and I do loan to them. Unless I buy something used, my books look as new as the day I bought them despite having been read by me. I am just too picky to risk that.
Which is sad in its way because the idea of books and libraries are that they are so much more wonderful if they are shared. And my reading was fueled as a child in part by an uncle who loaned me his science fiction.
My worst experience: I loaned a friend a copy of a William Shatner biography that I had purchased new. I read it and loaned it to her and she kept making excuses as to why she couldn’t bring it back to me. She eventually brought it back and it had been chewed quite liberally by her cat. My intention had been to sell it because I was unhappy with it. She apologized but never offered to pay me back or buy another copy or whatever. We were still friends, but that has always bothered me a bit. If the situation had been reversed, my friend wouldn’t have been told about the cat-chewed book until I could hand them a pristine new copy of the book. It wasn’t like it was expensive or anything. That helped cure me of whatever small desire I might have had to share books.
Most times if I am reading something I really want a friend to read, I’ll go buy them a copy before I loan them mine. I’ve purchased a ton of copies of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere for that very reason!
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I’m happy to loan a book to any of my friends. Odds are if you’re a friend of mine then you respect books and will treat it right.
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I am a type D by nature. I hate lending books because I know most people won’t treat them as well as I do. I admit I’m a bit of a Gollum when it comes to my books (My own! My presciousss!), and used to try to make up excuses when people asked to borrow anything. Fortunately no one asks me to lend them my books anymore, because none of my friends within lending distance read much – especially not in English, and my library consist of 90% English books. The only person I lend my books to is my mother, because I know she takes very good care of them.
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The “Gollum” analogy is perfect, Hilde! I imagine I’ll be using that same comparison sometime in the future. I am exactly that same way.
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1 | bookmonkey
February 28, 2011 at 9:09 am
Mine has to be D…. I’m really funny about the condition of my books and most people I know are the opposite of this! I only wish I could not care and lend them to anyone because it would be great to see other people reading what I love. But I just can’t do it lol 🙂 I have lent books out to people on the odd occasion but they have to be fully aware of what I’m like first!!
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