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

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:

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

  • Noman says:

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

  • Amy says:

    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 :).

  • Kyle Bachman says:

    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.

  • Claudia says:

    Me too!

  • Nicole says:

    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.

  • Lynn says:

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

  • Linda says:

    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.

  • John Matro says:

    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.

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