Public Library Receipt Shows How Much Money You’ve Saved by Borrowing Books, Instead of Buying Them

in Books | August 28th, 2019 9 Comments

Wichi­ta Pub­lic Library has a neat sys­tem. They write on their blog: “Every time mate­ri­als are bor­rowed from the Wichi­ta Pub­lic Library (WPL) cus­tomers receive a receipt show­ing how much they have saved in that vis­it, the year to date, and their life­time sav­ings. The infor­ma­tion is dis­played on the receipt sim­i­lar to the ways that retail stores show sav­ings to club mem­bers or coupon users.” They then go on to add: “So far this year, the high­est dol­lar amount saved by a cus­tomer’s account is $64,734.12. And the high­est dol­lar amount saved by a cus­tomer’s account since this fea­ture was imple­ment­ed is $196,076.21.” Every book adds up…

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Comments (9)
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  • Gerald says:
    August 28, 2019 at 7:12 am

    Not so sure about the math here. Pret­ty sure Robin­son Cru­soe can be had for free (or very close to it).

    Reply
  • Noman says:
    August 28, 2019 at 12:02 pm

    Except that libraries aren’t free; we pay for them with our tax­es.

    Reply
  • Amy says:
    August 28, 2019 at 2:10 pm

    I addi­tion to my tax­es which I glad­ly pay to sup­port the library, I pay a lot in late fees as my way to fur­ther sup­port the library :).

    Reply
  • Kyle Bachman says:
    August 29, 2019 at 6:37 am

    Hey– math might be a lit­tle inflat­ed, but libraries give great return on invest­ment- in my opin­ion!! Some­thing there for almost every­one, and every­one is wel­come.

    Reply
  • Claudia says:
    August 29, 2019 at 10:06 am

    Me too!

    Reply
  • Nicole says:
    August 29, 2019 at 10:08 am

    Robin­son Cru­soe is just the last book list­ed. There were like­ly sev­er­al more books being checked out at the same time.
    It says you saved that amount, not that it was free.

    Reply
  • Lynn says:
    September 15, 2019 at 11:53 am

    Late fees are a deci­sion. You can some­times call or renew a book online.

    Reply
  • Linda says:
    September 20, 2019 at 7:16 am

    Wichi­ta Pub­lic Library was my only library (besides pub­lic school and uni­ver­si­ty libraries) for the first half of my life. I’m 70 now. I’m sure WPL has saved me lots. So have San Bernardi­no Coun­ty, San Bernardi­no City, River­side Coun­ty, Fres­no Coun­ty, Tulare Coun­ty, and Kern Coun­ty library sys­tems. I love being able to sup­port my library with my tax­es. Also with my late fees. Also with pur­chas­ing at the Friends of the Library book sales.

    Reply
  • John Matro says:
    November 14, 2019 at 10:01 pm

    The Salt Lake City Pub­lic Library has the same infor­ma­tion their receipts. I’ve com­pared their claimed CD prices and they are almost dou­ble the nor­mal retail price. If they’re fools they pay as much as they claim. But they also may be inflat­ing the num­bers so that you are more like­ly to donate to libraries because they give you such a bar­gain.

    Reply

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