Before you start judging, think about it: where else can you go to borrow DVDs, CDs, books, use the internet, use conference rooms, and browse magazines and newspapers for hours, all for free?

OK, maybe that does sound a little bit too nerdy. But I don’t care. You judging people are just missing out.

Liverpool’s library is one of the best I have ever seen. Just before Christmas I headed to the travel section, just hoping they may have a book or two to feed my curiosity for an upcoming holiday to India and Nepal. I was expecting old, dog-eared children’s atlas type of books. But pleasantly, I was met with a whole shelf of travel guides on the subcontinent.

I stocked up and with library bag full of Lonely Planets and Let’s Go guides, happily went home to travel from my lounge.

But I think Liverpool Library, and indeed the other library I regularly borrow from, love me more than I love them.

I think of it as my contribution to the book funds. The libraries think of it as an irritating borrower who renews the maximum of three times online, and then comes in and begs for the overdue fees to be lifted.

I have a secret to confess, one I am certainly not very proud of. As a child, I borrowed a book (that library shall remain nameless, and for the record, it was not Liverpool) for a school project, and my dog literally ate it. My parents thought I should foot the bill, and I told them I would save my pocket money and pay for it on my way home from school.

I never did.

So, the fees I now pay, more often than I should, are sort of paying for that one book that was damaged all those years ago. OK I know it doesn’t work that way, but it makes me feel better to believe that anyway.

The most recent pile of very overdue books I returned to Liverpool library meant I had to pay a hefty fee. I wanted to renew them, but had had them out for so long I had to return them, wait a day, and then go back to see if they were there.