My strategic borrowing

If I'm browsing the stacks at a library and I run across a book I like but might not have time to read, I will check it out anyway with the idea that it will improve the book's library survival. Books that don't get checked out for years tend to lose their place on the shelves and end up on the book sale tables, and this is my little way of forestalling that.

But it's hard to tell sometimes when the last time a book was checked out. It used to be, you could flip to the back of the book and check the date due stamp. With the advent of computerized check-out, though, the dates don't always get stamped. So I ask the librarian. They usually can tell me.

Example: I recently checked out a copy of Flannery O'Connor's collected works. The stamp said the last check out date was 1995. But I asked the library assistant to look it up, and the last actual check out date was 2005.