Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Another way to build your birth(/pregnancy/breastfeeding) library

I've mentioned before that the thrift store of a college town is a great place to build my "doula shelf" of books that are useful to me and to lend out to clients and others. Last weekend I was at Barnes & Noble where they were selling "Birthing From Within" for the list price of $20. A half-hour later I found it at the thrift store for 25 cents!

Finds like that don't come along all the time, though, and lately I've become enamored of PaperBackSwap. The way it works is pretty simple: you post books you have to offer. Every time someone requests one from you, you mail it, and get a credit. When you find a book you want, you request it, and use a credit. Since every book you mail costs about $3 by media mail, each credit you use has basically cost you about $3 - not 25 cents, but not bad either.

Some books are hard to come by (I think I'm something like #171 on the wish list for "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth") but others come easy - I lent out and never got back my Sears & Sears "The Birth Book", and when I looked there was already one posted for me to request (hopefully not the one I lent out originally!) And it's a good way to get rid of books you're not going to read again! The thrift store reads I don't want to keep, I just post up there and they go to a good home.

So that's my tip for the evening. Now back to homework!

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