i prefer to buy my own books, partly because i have my own favourite authors, some of whom are a little off mainstream, and would like to keep their works - John Irving, Rushdie, Chuck Pahlniuk to name a few. The other reason being the specialised nature of the books which i keep for reference or for just plain collecting.
not a big fan of borrowing - mainly because there aren't many good libraries with any decent collection to talk about and the other alternative - the rental stores cater for only the popular titles and their selection isn't too my tastes
of course when you hit 1000++ books storage becomes a huge problem.
i tried downloading and even audiobooks but they aren't quite the same as reading a book

blueflame, i can understand where you are coming from based on your comments above so dont worry it does make perfect sense.

two important points that your post raised are the availability of books and reading as a whole.

i think access to getting books has improved over the last 20 years with there being much more choice than before, even more if you add in the internet as a source for books as well. as for the future of books - i fear we may be fighting the tide as costs of traditional publishing rises.

as for reading, while you still find lots of people reading, as judged by those who frequent bookstores etc there are twice as many who do not. i came to like reading much later in life, and i missed out on almost all the classics mainly concentrating on contemporary writing.

as for those poor unwanted books there is always Bookcrossings and the like :-)