What the card in your purse already buys
Find out what you already have before you pay for a version of it, get past a page of paid results to do it, and hand the same discovery to somebody else in one message.
This course has been about what a computer is actually for, once the frightening parts are behind you: the program you missed, the station you grew up with, a book read aloud while you do the washing-up.
So here is a practice computer, a neighbor about to pay for another month of something, and a card that has been in a purse since the new library was built. Nothing on the screen will tell you where to look, and the top of any search will be busy selling you the other answer.
Key points
- Get past the paid results at the top of a search to the thing that is actually free.
- Find out what a library card opens, which is a great deal more than books.
- Pass something good on to somebody who was about to pay for it.
What to remember
- Nearly every library service in the country lends e-books and audiobooks on the card you already have, and a loan takes itself back on the last day, so there is nothing to forget and no fine to be had. What is on offer differs from one authority to the next, and yours is a question for the desk or for their own website. The habit worth keeping is the order: find out what you already have before you pay for a version of it. That goes for newspapers, magazines and movies as much as for books — and a book read aloud is not a lesser book, it is a book read to somebody whose eyes have done enough for one day.
- Honestly — how was that?
Try this
Find your own library service — the county or the city, not a bookshop — and look on their site for the word borrow. If your card has lapsed, joining again is usually a short form and a few minutes, and it costs nothing either way.
Practice: What the card in your purse already buys. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.