All You Can Read

Today I was so excited to be rejoining Leeds University Library as a graduate member, that I nearly ran all the way there (which to be fair, would only have taken me about five minutes as I still live so close to the campus).

I wanted a copy of "The Dialectic of Sex" so I could read chapter 7 for a feminist book group next week. I'd left it too late to pick up a secondhand copy online, and the Leeds central library didn't even have a copy on the catalogue. The book group is run by the Leeds University feminist society, and after checking the University library catalogue online and then spending a few minutes begrudging the fact that most members of the group could just walk into the university library and pick up a copy, I remembered that as a graduate of Leeds University - so can I!

Getting a graduate library membership is something that has been at the back of my mind since I graduated (2006) but I've just never gotten round to it. I had in my head that membership was for an academic year, and so each time I remembered that I wanted to join it always seemed to be so far through the year that I should just wait until the next year. As it turns out, the card they gave me today is valid for 5 years, and I don't need to renew it on a yearly basis.
Best of all, because it I have a reference only card that doesn't allow me to check out books, it was free! (To get a card that allows me to actually borrow books would cost £50/year. I'm not going to go that far just yet, I'll have the reference only membership for a year or so and see how that suits me.) Because the other thing about the university library (and by that I mean the Brotherton Library, not the Edward Boyle Library; Leeds University has two libraries) is that not only is it a mere ten minute walk from my house, it is also a LOVELY place to spend your time. It's a circular building with lovely wooden panelling, a basement floor with the most amazing floor-to-ceiling shelves, cubby hole desks where you can hide away for hours at a time. I don't need to take the books home with me, I can quite happily read whatever I need to read whilst I'm there.

So this weekend, you can find me in the library. Reading feminist theory. For FUN.