Have you ever scrambled around, charging through your house looking for lost library books? Or worse, forgetting that you even had the books in the first place until you get a notice from the library?
I can share a little solution that works well for us. We have books from our local public library plus books that my son checks out from his school library. Since I started this system, I have never lost a book or have been late with one yet! And even better, this solution helped resolve a misunderstanding that could have cost us some real money.
Here is what works for us. In our family room, I have placed a pretty basket. It is a dark wood color and lined in a stripped fabric in earth tones. I found it on sale at a craft store. The neutral color and design ensures that the basket can be moved to a different room, if that becomes necessary. All library books are stored in this basket. If a book is taken out to be read, it goes right back in the basket as soon as the reading is done. This ensures that it won’t get lost.
In addition, I place a piece of card stock in the basket with the book, It details when the books need to be returned. The card stock sticks out of the basket a bit, so it is easy to see it whenever a book is taken out.
Recently, we received a note from the school library saying that there were four books overdue. Because of my system, I could honestly rebut the charge. Not only was I confident that all of our books had been returned, but I could refer back to my card stock to confirm that we never even checked out those books. I wrote a note to the librarian, and she was able to get to the bottom of the issue: The four books were checked out to another student, but incorrectly assigned to my son’s library card number.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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