An idea whose time has come, private libraries.

Ok I live in a fairly wealthy suburb of Dallas, so the library I have access to is very nice. However, it is nothing compared to my local Barnes and Nobles, but B&N frowns on me “borrowing books”, and multimedia content. Never the less people buy books, especially computer books, read them and return them. So, my idea is a private library or a library club. I am sure something like this already exists, since BooksFree.com has a similar model, but not the selection or the physical location. Imagine if B&N had a plan that for $20 a month, plus $1 (or a bit more) per item per week, you could borrow a book. Then you could either buy it and credited for the “rental”, or return it. However, if when you returned the item it was not in a sellable condition, or you lost it, then you buy it.

Now then it doesn’t depend on B&N or Borders, to do it. A similar thing could be done by a club or even a group of individuals, since if they donated use of their private books plus money for new acquisitions, they could quickly acquire a good selection. If the members were diverse enough the waits wouldn’t be too long for any particular selection, and most wouldn’t notice especially if the depth of selection was good enough since there would be plenty of books people had never thought to read.