[“Let Inga Tell You”, La Jolla Light, published August 3, 2026] 2026
Ever since I retired, the La Jolla Public Library has become my second home. My library reserve queue is always maxed out and I generally read three books a week. The front seat of my car has library books being transported to and from the library pretty much at all times.
Being able to read so many books is definitely a corrective emotional experience from my twelve years as a divorced working mom when I read exactly no books a year. I mean, zee-ro. I didn’t even bother with a library card since they unreasonably wouldn’t let you keep a book out for a decade. There used to be library fines and mine would have looked like the defense budget.
My engineer husband Olof reads both e-books and physical books. He likes novels on his e-reader but thinks the graphics are better in those massive 1,200-page techno-tomes he inexplicably considers pleasure reading. As for me, I just like the tactile feel of an actual book in my lap, the soothing susurrus when you turn the pages.
I have seen first-hand that I am not the only physical book aficionado out there. Never was this illustrated more obviously than on March 14, 2020 when the Covid epidemic hit and the library announced it would be closing the next day until further notice. The Riford library on Draper looked like a literary Luddite Fall of Saigon. The librarians were frantically dispensing plastic grocery bags and allowing patrons to check out up to 40 books although I don’t think anyone was actually counting. Like everyone else, I was dumping books wholesale into my bags according to two criteria: (1) it had a cover and (2) there were words inside.
One would think that the lack of availability of physical books for so many months in 2020 would have inspired some of us to embrace technology. But you would be wrong. Covid generated a new DSM-5 category: People Who Will Just Not Use E-Readers No Matter What. (There is no vaccine for this.)
From time to time, we techno-hostile people actually prevail. Olof and I like to sit outside on summer evenings and read, he on his iPad or e-reader, and me with a library book. Not infrequently, Olof will have to go in early because the iPad’s low battery sensor is flashing. I try to look sympathetic but it’s all I can do to stifle a snicker. I never have to worry about the battery on my library book getting too low.
Now that I’m able to read so much, I’ve had to engage in Library Math. As in, do I have the life expectancy to get some of the books I want given the number of holds versus the number of copies? There’s some serious competition out there for the best sellers.
For every book I have on hold, I have 13 days to pick it up after my hold number comes up, then 30 days to read it. If others are waiting for it, there are no renewals. So I have to allow that each person in the hold queue ahead of me could take 43 days.
Now, one hopes that they will pick it up sooner and read it faster, and therefore return it faster. But they might have been on vacation when the book became available. Or they might not even have returned it after the 30 days. Now that there are no more library fines there are actually evil low-life reprobates who keep them past due even knowing there are people with limited life expectancy who might be waiting.
The other skewing factor is “transit time.” I find that even after my queue number has come up, it can easily take two weeks for the book to actually arrive on the Holds shelf at the La Jolla Library with my name on it. I’m guessing this is a budget cuts issue. This could easily add 14 days to the potential 43 days, or 57 days per hold.
But removing the transit time from the equation for simplicity’s sake, when I recently put a hold on a best seller I really wanted to read, there were 1211 holds ahead of me on 12 copies. Those 1211 holds x 43 days per hold came to 52,073 hold days divided by 12 copies which came to 4339 hold days or… 11.8 years.
This brings up two moot points, the first of which is that holds are only good for one year after which they are cancelled. (The other is that I’ll likely be dead.)
I queried one of the librarians about how rigid the one year hold time is. Will the library computer system automatically cancel a hold after that time as their site says? This person said that they usually recommend that if a person thinks they want to read a certain book, they get on the hold list early. So no definitive answer there.
The library does seem, in their defense, to buy more copies of the most popular books.
But this doesn’t always solve the problem. Another book I wanted had 1335 holds but given its popularity, the library now had 108 copies. But 1335 x 43 comes to 57,405 hold days (not even factoring in that pesky transit time) and even divided by 108 copies still comes to 532 days or more than the maximum one year allowable hold time.
E-books are not unlimited but do seem a little faster. One of the books I wanted had 375 e-book holds x 43 days per holder came out to 16,125. One of those 58 copies would come up by day 278. If, of course, I was willing to read e-books.
So increasingly, I’m finding myself calculating: do I have a reasonable life expectancy to get a particular book?
If not, maybe it’s time to just buy the damn book then donate it to the library after I’ve read it, increasing the number of available copies for my fellow anti-e-book Luddite compatriots? I’m hoping they’ll actually put it in circulation.
On more than a few occasions lately, I’ve done just that. Not only do I get the book a lot sooner, but I consider it my contribution to the local tree-killing physical book community. (You’re welcome.)
