Addendum to Going Green: "The Happy Minimalist"

Peter Lawrence, a former customer at the Barbara Bush Library, was able to retire from his job with Hewlett-Packard at a young age because of his minimalist lifestyle. He writes of his success in a new little book entitled "The Happy Minimalist" http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp?bookid=49829

Since this is so in line with many of the things people have discussed in the Going Green segments, I thought I would share a passage from his book about the benefits of public libraries.

"I am a heavy user of the public library. I see it to be the best use of our tax dollars. Here are some benefits:

1) It helps you to be a minimalist. You don't have to own any of the books you want to read. You can always borrow from the library.

2) Saves you money since you do not have to buy books, CDs, or movies.

3) Helps you to read, watch, or listen to whatever you wanted to read, watch, or listen to within a prescribed time. Because there are due dates, you are "forced" to spend time doing something that you wanted to do anyway.

4) It educates you through talks or classes they conduct.

5) It provides an avenue for you to donate your used reading materials, videos, CDs, and even art pieces. [Note: Peter donated some art work for our teen area at the library when he moved from Texas to California several years ago.]

6) It provides an avenue for you to volunteer.

7) It increases the utility per resource (upr) of the city. When a single resource like a book is utilized by several people over the lifetime of the book, the aggregate utility is significantly higher than a book sitting on someone's bookshelf at home and utilized only by that household."

Peter concludes this section with a great quote from Malcolm Forbes: "The richest person in the world -- in fact all the riches in the world -- couldn't provide you with anything like the endless, incredible loot available at your local library."