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Do you tend to buy the books for DITHOR, ER, and storytime or do you tend to borrow them from the library? Advantages/disadvantages?

Our library is less than a mile away, so we can even walk there. It is part of a big system, and they will transfer the books from one location to another for us. So, I am thinking of using the library as much as possible... They have almost all of the ER books we will need this year (minus the Bible which we have and one other book), and I am starting to look at Beyond and DITHOR books for next year.

I am buying everything that we can afford. I have six children to teach, so I feel we easily get our money's worth.

We do have a great interlibrary loan system, but it's still never a guarantee that you'll be able to get the book when you need it and for as long as you need it.

I did do the library for our storytime titles. There are so many options and so many of them are actually AT the library. Interlibrary loan is great, but generally you are limited to one checkout cycle, or you can only assume that you will get one checkout cycle (3 weeks). Storytime takes 4 weeks (and that's if you're schooling 5 days/week, we don't). As you move up in the guides so many of the books are published by smaller Christian publishers and not really available at the library. Plus you need to have them WHEN you need them, and again, usually for more than 3 weeks.

I think I may use some different storytime options for Beyond the next time through, and that was what I used a lot of library books for last time. I could see using them for the ER's and storytime titles pretty easily (though ER's have page numbers listed so if you get a different edition/printing from the library it may not coincide, but a lot of the ER readings are one chapter per day, you may have a little bit of trouble figuring it out....).

I checked out a few for DITHOR too. I may continue to or not, but the recommendations on here are so excellent and again, many are not available at most libraries. I do mean to check out my church's library, there are a lot of books there and some of them I have seen are actually in the HOD plans.

Our"loan program is within the city. We can recheck them too just like books at the closest branch. And many of the books for ER are available at a bunch of branches, so they should he pretty easy to get. But if there are only a few copies then I will consider buying I guess. Thanks.

I buy all of our books.

I use the library for as much as I am able to save money. The only disadvantage is making sure you have the books you need exactly when you need them. So far this hasn't been a problem for us. We are in a large library system as well and there are typically several copies of what I need. I also requested they purchase several of the HOD titles and most of them were approved! That was really neat to see. By using the library I've been able to save about 25% of the total cost and for us that is significant.

I have starting buying our books. Our library system is very large but they only have 1 or 2 copies of the good books so I spent a lot of time on the wait list. I rarely had the book I needed when I needed it. When I did, I couldn't keep it as long as I needed it because someone else (x10) was on the wait list. Our ILL cost $5 per item so I figured I might as well just buy the book for $7.99 or what have you. However, if I had a good library system with a nice supply of good titles, I would use it.

The advantage is you get to save money and you learn patience .

I buy everything. I am not organized enough to deal with library books, as I always have late fees. Plus I'm buying once and then reusing the guides and books for all of my children.

I think you should use the library, in your situation. You are close and they actually have the titles you need.

*My* library is a frustrating thing. LOL. It is half an hour away, they hardly have any of the HOD titles... even the classics award winning ones..! Out of all 3 Beyond storytime sets they had just a handful of the titles... and only 1 of those were out of the set I wanted.

Interlibrary loan would flop for me. Have to order it, wait for it to come in (who knows when or even IF), then give it back before we're done.

Our library is only good for its weekly program and just free reading books

I buy all the books, even the extra story time sets which we use as night time read alouds. I like to have everything in one place and know it's available when I need it. We have two more kids to cycle through, so it will be nice to have everything stored together and ready to go.

I buy them (usually used) so I can resell them without losing much money at all. We have a wonderful library system, and I totally did K4 with the library. That was back in the day when holds were unlimited. Now they limit it to just a few per card, so it is hard. Some books would be very hard to get, so it just isn't worth my time.

Thanks ladies! I got a little "nerdy" and started an Excel file for all of the readers/storytime books. I listed the number of copies in our city's library system. Of course if they don't' have any, I am stuck buying them. So I color coded those red. Then I color coded ones with fewer than 5 copies in purple, and I will keep those lists with me when I go to used book stores, used curriculum sales, etc. And if I can't find them used, I will just order them. And of course if I find ones that the library has but at an amazing price, I will buy those ones too

That's a great way to keep organized! You will probably be able to get some great deals on books that way too. You could even (if you want to be extra nerdy) keep the ISBN numbers handy so that way you can at least know if you're getting the same edition/printing (does a different printing have a new ISBN #.... maybe not).

I thought about adding in the ISBN for the storytime books. I am guessing page numbers aren't used for DITHOR and ER though - right? I am adding in the HOD price into the spreadsheet, so I might as well add in the ISBN If it is just a true reprint, then the ISBN doesn't change. But, if the format or font changes, they have to use a different ISBN. So, I am guessing as long as the ISBN is the same, the page numbers should be the same.