Is it still worth joining a library?

If your idea of a library was formed at school, it is worth another look. The shelves are still there, but so is a lot more, much of it on your phone.

Ebooks and audiobooks for free

Many public libraries now lend digital books. In the English-speaking world the best-known app is Libby, made by OverDrive. It lets you borrow ebooks, digital audiobooks and magazines from your public library, stream them or download them for offline reading, with no subscriptions and no fines; titles simply return themselves when the loan ends, according to Libby's own help pages. You need a library card, and your library decides which titles it offers and how long loans last.

In Italy, the main platform is MLOL, MediaLibraryOnLine, used by most Italian public libraries. To use it you usually register in person at a member library first, then borrow ebooks free of charge, as this Italian guide explains. Its "Open" section also offers a very large collection of freely available ebooks. One practical warning from the same guide: many MLOL loans use Adobe DRM, which Kindle devices cannot open, so check what works on your reader.

For audiobook fans in particular, a library card can replace a paid subscription; for whether listening counts, see do audiobooks count as reading.

Holds and new books

Popular new books are often out on loan, but many libraries let you reserve a copy and join the queue, for physical and digital titles alike. Ask at the desk or look in the catalogue. It feels like a small subscription service that someone else pays for, and it gently slows you down: you read what arrives, when it arrives.

Reading without buying

This is the real gift. When a book costs nothing, you can:

• Take risks. Try a new genre, a translated author or a big classic without worrying about the money.
• Abandon freely. If it is not working after fifty pages, it goes back. No guilt.
• Sample before you buy. Borrow first, then buy the books you want to own and reread.
• Borrow the big ones. A huge classic such as Middlemarch, first published in eight parts in 1871-72, per Wikipedia, is a lot of shelf space for a book you may read once. Borrow it, and renew as often as you need.

More than books

Libraries vary hugely by town and country, so check your own. Depending on where you live, you may find:

• Quiet space to read or work, often with Wi-Fi.
• Events: author talks, reading groups, children's story times, language conversation groups.
• Local history collections and newspapers.
• Help from librarians, who are very good at answering "I loved this, what next?" Our page on choosing what to read next has more ways to find your next book.

Reading groups that meet at the library are also a low-effort way to try a book club before starting your own; see starting a book club that lasts.

Making the most of it

• Get the card and the app on the same day. Ask staff to help set up digital lending while you are there.
• Use holds as a reading list. Put a few books on hold at once and let them arrive in their own time.
• Visit in person now and then. Browsing the shelves leads to books no algorithm would suggest.
• Bring a bag. Libraries are where good intentions turn into a pile of seven books. Take three.