Photography Concentrate

I’m going to let you in on one of our biggest secrets. It’s a resource treasure trove that has helped shape our business and our art, and provides literally endless amounts of high quality inspiration. Have I piqued your interest?

We believe that the best $10 you can spend on your business is buying a library card.  

Why use the library?

There’s a quote I like from Good Will Hunting that I will summarize for you due to profanity. Will essentially states that a cocky Harvard student paid $150,000 for an education that he could have gotten for $1.50 in late charges at the public library. 

It’s a statement that puts in perspective the real cost of education. We live in a time where our access to information is unprecedented. We can learn (and master) nearly anything we like. The only thing you have to do is put the time into learning and practicing. 

Besides the library being an incredibly cheap information resource, it’s also the form the information is in that makes it exceptionally valuable. Books.

The problem with the internet is that you have to really search to find high quality information. Even when you find it, it isn’t always presented in a logical and meaningful way, and is often littered with advertising and misinformation. Not only that but it often comes in the form of small information nuggets, not the comprehensive weighty variety that has the ability to really transform the way you think and supply you with substantial ideas and inspiration. 

Warning! Small rant ahead! As an aside you may want to consider reducing your consumption of subscription based entertainment / education. When you think about it, the cycle of subscription exists to generate profit for the subscription producer (whether it be magazine media, television, or newspapers). They want new subscribers who pay more for their content. This is the reason we see increasing amounts of absurd newspaper head lines, a glut of profit driven reality television series, articles with very little valuable content and magazines with more advertising than specialized journalism. I spent a half hour reading magazines yesterday and didn’t learn a thing. Talk about a terrible investment of time! Consume the weighty information you can learn from books and you’ll never regret it. (Naturally we’re not saying that all subscription based education is bad, just that a large amount seem to exist more for profit than for learning). 

How to use the library

If you haven’t been to the library in a while now is the time to go check things out. I think you’ll find things have changed a little. Because libraries are different everywhere I can’t say things will work the same, but I’ll give you an example of how we use our library.

Our library (in Edmonton, Canada) has a website (http://www.epl.ca). Whenever we think of a topic we’d like to learn more about we visit their website and do a search. Their website has the ability to track all the library books in circulation in Edmonton at all their branches. We find the books we want and reserve them online, the books are shipped from whatever branch they are at and we can pick them up at our local branch. Everything is automated. As soon as books come in we’re sent an e-mail letting us know they’re waiting to be picked up. If the book isn’t available we’ll be put on the waiting list, and e-mailed when it’s available. Their system also e-mails us a day before books are due so that we remember to return or renew them (which can be done online). We’re also able to borrow ebooks online (though we can’t get them onto our iPads yet ☹ )

If you’re not sure what you want to read but have a general topic in mind then head over to Amazon and peruse their best sellers list, then check to see if your library has the book - they often will. And if they don’t you can often request that they purchase a copy and you be put on a waiting list for when it comes in! 

It’s also a great idea to just go for a walk through the library to get started. There are so many books that you wouldn’t even think to search that just pop out when you’re walking aisle to aisle. Pick up anything that catches your eye, grab a seat, and flip through it. It may or may not be interesting to you, the key is to just browse without limitations. You might find an artist or way of thinking that completely changes your perspective, or at the very least challenges it.

Finally, if you find a book that you keep taking out, or renewing, it might be worth buying. But be careful. When you think about it, books spend most of their time just sitting on shelves! There’s no point in buying books that you don’t absolutely love.

This weekend if you’re feeling like you could use a healthy dose of inspiration, go and stroll around your local library. It’s pretty much guaranteed to get your mind working and the creative juices flowing!

P.S. Also keep your eyes out for music, movies, and documentaries at your library; all amazing sources of inspiration as well!