Earlier this evening, I neatly stacked my unbounded 200 page textbook onto the document feeder of a waist high scanner, converting a college Linear Algebra book from physical form into a 40 megabyte colored PDF — all within 3 minutes. And best of all: it was free! That’s right, I didn’t pay a single penny, thanks to my local library, which is somehow stocked with a blazing fast multi functioning scanner, a Sharp MX-4070 that sells for $15,000.  Tapping into the free resources that my library offers reminded me just how amazing libraries are. And after I scanned my book, I strolled up and down a couple aisles, running my fingers horizontally across book spines, settling on three books that caught my attention: “When” by Daniel H. Pink, String Theory by David Foster Wallace, and “Where the Past Begins” by Amy Tan. These three books are now sitting on the corner of my desk, within arm’s reach, books that I’ll cycle through over the next couple weeks.

Anyways, today’s experience served as a reminder of how magical libraries are and how, instead of buying new books that often lay on my shelf collecting dust, I should stroll down to my local library and lap into an incredible, free resource.