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Local Libraries Still Innovating

by Smithee on January 28, 2009

in Frugality

During previous economic downturns, publications have often done stories about saving money by borrowing books, music and movies from the library. This is true not only in recessions, but every time you want to save some money. Libraries aren’t just for research; they have plenty of entertaining material as well.

But of course, they suffered from a problem that many bookstores didn’t: if a book was popular, you’d have a hard time finding a copy. It’s the 21st century now, most things have been digitized, so a perfect copy of anything shouldn’t be hard to find.

Well, with actual books printed on paper, you might still have to wait to get a copy of a popular title, but we recently found that our local library system is partnered with a service that enables it to offer digital downloads to anybody with a library card.

What’s more, it looks like this service, called “Overdrive”, has partnered with many many libraries throughout the world. Search their site to see if your library is offering this sort of thing. And if necessary, pick up a library card. They’re not expensive, I promise.

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Publicly Shame a Deadbeat

by Flexo on December 24, 2008

in Debt Reduction

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

That’s a well-known quotation from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Polonius was perhaps concerned about, among other things, the public shame that could come from being a deadbeat borrower. As he proferred this and other advice to his son, Polonius may have been thinking about the possibility of seeing Laërtes’ name listed on uradeadbeat.com (read: you are a deadbeat dot com).

Uradeadbeat.com lets anyone post messages and stories about a company or person who owes money. In addition to the public listing on the website, uradeadbeat.com provides a direct service. They will email the deadbeat to inform them of the listing. If you provide an address, the website will also send a postcard.

All deadbeats have a chance to respond to the accusation. According to the site owner, some deadbeats were inspired to pay back their debts as a result of this public shaming.

It’s free to post a complaint, but in the future it will not be a free service.

This probably isn’t the best way to get someone who owes you money to pay up, but it might be a good option as a last resort.

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