I recently visited the NYPL at 42nd St during lunch and finally got myself a library card. I haven’t been in this library for at least a decade and I haven’t been to a public library in a long while since I switched over to using a Kindle a few years ago.

The upside is that I no longer have many bookshelves overloaded with physical books; it is easier when it comes to moving apartments because I used to have 25-35 heavy boxes of just books (most have been donated between 2008-2012 leaving me with just enough for half a cabinet). At one point I had four large bookcases and one shelf noisily collapsed with much fanfare in the middle of the night scaring the stuffings out of me.

The downside is that I’ve spent way too much money buying books because it is too easy to buy them on the kindle. You don’t even realize it until you do an inventory and discover you’ve bought hundreds of books.

Anyway, I decided to get a library card so I can borrow NYPL ebooks. It’s pretty cool. The nypl steps to do it was a bit confusing at first but I finally got the hang of it.  I’m going to write my own little how-to here in case anyone is trying it out for the first time too. Here’s some useful info written in 2011 from the NYPL though the visuals are a little outdated.

Library stuff:

• Apply for a library card: You can go to a NYPL in person and apply there (bring a piece of ID like your driver’s license) or you can apply online but you will still need to go to a library with your ID to have your application validated and to pick up the physical card. If there isn’t a lot of people applying, it takes about 15 mins. Please note the card doesn’t work in Queens — you need to get a separate Queens library card.
• Library cards require you to have a PIN and the cards expire every 3 years.  The NYPL online member accounts are pretty nice — you can search for books, put a hold on books and add books to the wish list.
• Borrowing an e-book:  Log into your account at the NYPL eBooks site. Search for a book that you want. (Hint: use the filters to filter by Kindle ebooks that are currently available else all you will end up with are books that you need to put a hold on. Just about every book I wanted to read had 20+ people in front of me waiting to read it too.)  Once you have found a book you want and it is available for borrowing, click on “Borrow”. This will add the book to your bookshelf. Log into your Amazon account (or the one that is linked to your kindle device). Go back to the nypl ebook bookshelf and click on “Download” and choose the format (Kindle book). Now go back to your Amazon account. You should see the book (if you don’t, then search for the title) with a button on the right side bar that says “Get library book”. Choose the device you want to send to from the drop down list (in case you have more than one kindle) and click on “Send to Device”. Turn on your kindle, make sure wifi is enabled and you should see the book downloading!

Happy Reading!