A few months ago in the post below, I asked if anyone wanted me to elaborate on what I learned about all the benefits of library cards and I was pleasantly surprised that a lot of people did! So this is me fulfilling that promise.
Background
First, some background. In case it hasn’t been clear on this blog before, I absolutely love libraries. They’re where I turned when I first learned about FIRE to check out every book I could about investing.
As a result, I taught myself about DIY investing, index funds and early retirement by reading the words of others with my lovely library card. All of those books were mentioned in one of my earliest posts below, which I wrote over 10 years ago. Time flies π .
At the time the most influential FIRE books to me were:
- Your Money Or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joseph R. Dominguez
- The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley
- The Simple Path To Wealth by J.L. Collins*
*This wasn’t a published book yet, but all that info was available in JL’s Stock Series on his blog, which was later turned into the book. In 2015, I re-read those blog posts a million times and then this book came out in 2016. And he re-published a version in 2025 with updated numbers π .
After I got my head around DIY investing, I started to analyze my spending for the first time in my life and a part of that was looking to see if all the dollars I was spending brought me happiness. One thing that I realized was that I had been underutilizing my library card.
So I started getting books from the library instead of always buying them and when the Libby App became common for eBooks, I used that to get books automatically sent to my phone and later my Kindle. It was like magic π .
Fast-forwarding into retirement, libraries have been a large reason why I have been able to affordably indulge in one of my favorite lifelong hobbies: Reading π . And reading a shitton specifically π .
- How I Read 220 Books For $93 In 2024
- How I Read 250 Books For $8 In 2023
- How I Read 100 Books For Free In 2022
- How I Read 52 Non-Fiction Books In 52 Weeks
While working I would call it a win if I finished 12 books in a year. In retirement, I have the time and attention span to indulge a lot more than that π .
All that to say, I love libraries and I love reading, but I didn’t realize until I got a homebase that libraries offer a lot more than I ever thought. So let’s get into it!
First, I want to give full credit to the lovely Bitches Get Riches for inspiring me to look into what my local library offers after I read the awesome below post of theirs. The post also has a video and audio version if you prefer that to a written one. They inspired me to go on this investigative journey and I can’t thank them enough.
Local Libraries
I visited my local library the week I changed my residence to get my library card and the very friendly librarian gave me the rundown of all the offerings they have there and I was completely surprised. I don’t know if this is normal or more of a small town thing, but my library has an entire room of rotating books that they sell 5 for $1. Yes, One. Dollar.
Of course I couldn’t resist and quickly starting filling up my new bookshelf in my apartment. That stuff is dangerous π .
In addition to that, my library has a weekly knitting club, walking club, poetry club, storytime for little ones and of course book clubs. All free with your library card. Amazing!
All that to say, feel free to check out what your local library offers – it might surprise you like it did me. I’ve heard that some libraries have free museum passes, seed libraries, parking passes and more. It’s wild out there π .
Sister Libraries
Now I need to give credit to another wonderful woman in my life, my sister-un-law! When I was updating my Partner’s family on my NY resident checklist items, such as getting a library card, she told me “Make sure you check the sister libraries!”
I asked her to explain because I hadn’t heard of sister libraries before. She mentioned that as a state resident, you usually get access to more than your local library….WHAT?! I literally had no idea and obviously don’t know what I didn’t know.
So I joined all the library systems I was allowed to, which was surprisingly more than one! I just Googled what libraries partner with my local library and now I have so many options! In case you live in Upstate NY or just want an example of this phenomenon, I was able to join:
- New York Public Library (I talk about this one more in a later section)
- Queens Public Library
- Upper Hudson Valley Library System
- Mohawk Valley Library System
- Southern Adirondak Library System
- Mid-Hudson Library System
- Queen Liberation Library (I’ll also talk about this one in a later section)
I added all of these libraries to my Libby App, which I use to get eBooks easily anywhere in the world. Because I have all these partner libraries linked in Libby, I’m now able to have 62 loans and more than 30 holds at once. The world is my oyster π .
When browsing for any book I can now see across all of these libraries which ones have the shortest line and join that or join multiples in case one of the libraries buys more copies of the book, as they often do, which shortens the line for everyone. It feels like gaming the system, but it’s all above board.
Most of these libraries were easy to add as Partner Libraries based on the steps here. However, a few took some extra steps that I’ll detail below.
New York Residents
So I’m about to go into detail about a few things that are New York State resident specific, but I imagine many states have similar offerings, so feel free to check out your state or county’s library benefits.
Apparently if you live ANYWHERE in New York State, you can become a part of the New York Public Library, which is the 2nd largest public library in the US (after the Library of Congress) and the 5th largest public library in the world!!!
You can also join the the Queens Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library, but that last one requires that you show up in person within 60 days of signing up so feel free to plan ahead if you don’t live in NYC.
New York Public Library (NYPL)
Unlike adding the Queens Public Library to my Libby app, adding the NYPL took a few steps. First I went to their website to apply for a partner library card.
After I applied, I clicked “Forgot Pin” and they emailed a pin to me and then I could instantly add that library to my Libby account. Not bad at all π .
After having access, I was able to see that the NYPL comes with a lot of perks whether you live in NYC or not. If you don’t, they have fun things like free access to the language learning platform Mango and a New York Times subscription if that’s your thing.
If you do live in the city, you can go to museums, rent board games, borrow tablets and hotspots, attend classes, rent an instrument and even book studio time – all for free. That’s awesome!
Upper Hudson Valley Library System
For a more niche experience, I went to this site to sign up for this library card and it was an instant process. I just had to visit my local library to pick up my card within 30 days. No problem π .
This specific library system also offers a free New York Times subscription as well as museum passes, events and classes, and access to tools like 3D printers!
Queer Liberation Library
This library I heard about from my sister-un-law. It’s free for members of the queer community and I was easily able to add this library to my Libby app. I had previously tried to sign up via their website and had some issues, so if you’re part of the community and want to join, I would suggest going through Libby instead of their website.
I had the goal a few years ago to read more books by queer authors that have queer protagonists (since it was a rarity in my book life) and now that’s almost all that I read, so I find this library a very helpful addition π .
Libby
I’ve mentioned Libby a lot already in this post, but just in case you don’t know what it is: Libby is an app that allows people to easily access library eBooks and other library materials around the world. It has a lot of helpful features like adding a Notify Me Smart Tag to a book so that Libby will alert me as soon as the title is added to their library so I can borrow it or get on the hold list ASAP. This has led to me getting to read new books on the day of release or soon after.
It also allows me to place books on my Hold list if they’re not automatically available to borrow. And now that I have a total of 7 library cards, I can easily see which one has the shortest wait and join that queue or join multiples as I mentioned above.
Another feature of Libby that I love is that it’s super easy to transfer their eBooks to my Kindle. After I get a book from Libby, I just go to Manage Loan>Read with Kindle, which takes me to an Amazon page where I confirm what’s happening and it sends the book to my Kindle. Then the book is not only delivered to my physical Kindle, but also to the free Kindle App on my phone, which is my preference for reading on the go.
Libby has been my main squeeze since I got really into borrowing books from the library instead of always buying them when I got into FIRE. However, it’s apparently not the only game in town.
Hoopla
My mother-un-law taught me about Hoopla recently. I had heard of it, but had (stupidly?) assumed that Hoopla was the same as Libby, but that was apparently a very wrong assumption π . Hoopla has totally changed my library game this year!
Libby provides access to eBooks, audiobooks and magazines, but Hoopla gives free, immediate access to not just eBooks and audiobooks, but movies, TV shows and music! And you read that right: “Immediate Access.” There are no holds on Hoopla – you can read or watch anything immediately.
This is because Libby and Hoopla have different payment models for libraries. Libby is on a βone copy, one userβ model and Hoopla uses a βpay-per-use” model.
On Libby, a library purchases the rights to a digital copy of a book for example, and it can be used by one person at a time – like a physical book. However with Hoopla, a library instead pays a small fee anytime something is checked out – there aren’t limited numbers of that item so there is no wait for anything.
One caveat though, I have read that because of its “pay-for-use” model, libraries have a limit of how many things you can borrow on Hoopla per month and the amount depends on your specific library and their budget. I haven’t encountered a limit yet in my exploration of Hoopla nor been able to find what the limit is for my library, but that’s something to keep in mind before you go wild borrowing everything in sight π .
And there are two other negatives to Hoopla in my opinion. One is that I can’t send their eBooks to my Kindle. I have to read it in their in app reader, which has been fine, but not ideal since I try to limit how much screentime my eyes get and because I read so much, I prefer to do so on my Kindle.
The other negative is that their search function is annoyingly designed. If I’m searching for an eBook for example, I have to type in the name then go to Format>eBook and if I then search for another book, the search starts all over again instead of remembering that preference and I have to click Format and then eBook again. It’s a small thing, but it got annoying after only looking for two books of the hundreds I read a year.
However, despite those small negatives, I’ve been really enjoying Hoopla and it has completely changed my library reading game now that I have tens of thousands of books at my fingertips instantly – how dangerous π .
Conclusion
And that concludes my deep dive into library benefits that not everyone might know about. This post started with me learning about smaller things like sister libraries and ended with my entire world being upended in a good way with the discovery of Hoopla’s benefits. So I hope this post also helped you expand the possibilities of what your library card can do.
Gotta love libraries indeed. Libraries and FIRE go hand in hand. Itβs the same here in Australia we have Libby too and BorrowBox. I havenβt heard of Hoopla but we can get films, tv shows with Kanopy and Beamafilms. Good to see that taxes are being but to great use in different countries π
They do indeed π . And cool – I’ve heard we have Kanopy here, but I haven’t used it yet. That’s awesome y’all have lots of options.
Definitely look into whether your library card also offers access to Kanopy. It’s a streaming movie channel that gives you a certain number of monthly credits and is a great source for documentaries, British mysteries, and short films.
I’ll look into it – thank you!
A few months ago a new location of our local library opened up about half a mile from my house, and I love it. They’re also organizing meetups and presentations on lots of different subjects. Main issue for me right now is that they are only open in the afternoons (and on Saturdays), meaning that for most of their opening hours, I’m working.
That’s awesome! And yeah the smaller ones have some weird hours.
Wow? The NYPL offers studio space? I’ve been renting rooms to play piano for years. Thank you for this! I haven’t used Libby yet. I am a digital nomad, former NYC resident. And while I do love the access of many ebooks, I can’t part from reading a physical book while dining alone or at the beach π
Yeah! It sounds really cool. And fair enough on physical books – I love them too.
Yay libraries! One thing you didn’t mention is that you can usually freeze/suspend your holds, so that you keep moving up the hold list, but the hold doesn’t trigger & fill until you reactivate the hold. This is another fantastic way to manage your reading pace! Check the fine print – some libraries let you pick a date to un-suspend, some libraries just leave it frozen for up to a year and then the hold vanishes. If you get to pick a future date, remember to keep an eye on it. I’ve occasionally forgotten and received ALL my books at the same time. Doh!
Also: ebooks are a lot more expensive for libraries, so if you are local to a library and don’t mind reading physical copies of books, that’s helpful to the library budget. Plus your physical book can’t vanish if you can’t quite read it in the time allotted! And many libraries don’t charge overdue fines anymore (though eventually they’ll charge a replacement fee if you keep a book forever).
Good point! I don’t really use the freeze/suspend feature because I like that my holds becoming available starts a countdown clock that makes me read them and prioritize them over other things. But that is a really good feature people should be aware of. Between that and the many people mentioning Kanopy maybe I need to already write an updated version of this post lol.
And good to know about eBooks! My local library is very small and doesn’t have physical copies of the books I read so far (I checked), but I’ll keep that in mind and prioritize physical books if they do (and I don’t have travel coming up π ). Thank you!
I always go for a physical copy but Iβm trying to get into ebooks before spending 5 weeks in Europe in the spring. Thanks for explaining Hoopla more! Thatβs what Iβve been using since my library routes us to them π
Yeah eBooks are amazing for travel! And nice π .
I love the New York library system. I’ve borrowed a telescope, taken out free seed packets, and of course read about a million books. My local library also has free scanning and printing, arts and crafts classes for kids, and during COVID times, they gave out free at-home tests.
If libraries were invented today, politicians would denounce them as socialism!
That’s awesome!! And lol – yep. I guess that would explain why some of them are trying to cut funds from libraries currently.