David Berg
DO12829/82
1. IF YOU'LL PUT YOUR GNs, BOTMs & OTHER BOOKS IN A LITTLE LIBRARY drawer in the living room or on a library table in the living room or some public room where everybody has access to them‚ & if you'll be sure that they're there on that table except when somebody's actually reading them or asleep with them in their arms & hope that they read it as soon as they wake up again, & get it back on the table as soon as they're through, then you will have more literature to share & pass around, even though there are fewer duplicate copies.
2. THIS IS A GREAT ECONOMY MEASURE WHICH WILL GREATLY HELP US to do what we're doing. In fact we could not have afforded to have mailed out the GNs in the quantities that we have mailed other things, and I think we're going to have to cut down on that too. Instead of mailing duplicate copies of whole BOTMs to the same Home‚ I think you're going to have to learn how to share in a library, instead of having individual copies.
3. WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO ESTABLISH HOME LIBRARIES. We can only afford to send one copy to any one Home & you can put it on your Home library shelf or table or in the Home library drawer or whatever & keep it out there in public view for the whole family, everybody who lives in that Home, to borrow those books from the library as they're needed. We've got enough books now that you have got enough to read. You don't all have to each one have a duplicate copy. I think that is wasteful unnecessary duplication! But you say,
4. "WHEN I MOVE, THEN WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?" Well hopefully you're going to stay in the Family & move into another Home that also has a Home library with shared copies. Now the System learned that a long time ago, only the wealthy can afford to have huge libraries of their own like we see in some of these wealthy homes where they don't have to walk down to the corner library. But most cities & communities have developed community libraries, public libraries where they keep most of the books in town in one library & everybody in the town can go there & borrow & there're plenty of books for everybody to read. They don't all have to be reading the same one at the same time or duplicate copies of the same one. Our Homes in this case can stick it on their Family Library shelf.
5. I'LL BET THERE'RE AT LEAST TWO OR THREE SHELVES OF ALL THE BOOKS WE'VE PUBLISHED! Because I've counted that in the past three years alone, 1980, 81 & 82 we have published over 65 books! Think of that! So I just don't think we can tolerate this wasteful spending of mailing huge tomes like BOTM 2 out in duplicate copies to every Home just so that everybody will have their own copy, or even every two bodies!
6. WE JUST CAN'T AFFORD IT BELOVED! IT'S RIDICULOUS WHEN WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE KIND OF PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IN SHARING!—Right? Well my God‚ if we're going to be so possessive & capitalistic with our private property in the way of books & lit‚ I call that selfishness! I call it unwillingness to share. I call such insistence on private property & personal possession selfish! It's capitalistic, & all your so-called revolution & rebellion against the system just goes right down the drain right into your bedroom because you've got duplicate copies of everything we have ever published in your bedroom & the next bedroom & the next bedroom—about four, five or six libraries like that in the same house!
7. THIS IS RIDICULOUS BELOVED! WE CAN'T AFFORD IT! We can't afford to publish them that way & I don't see how you can afford to own'm that way! I think we in our own home have really set the example. Because we have to move so often, we can't accumulate a library like that, for the plain & simple reason that we can't afford to carry it with us all the time! If everybody in this house or even every couple had their own complete library of three book shelves we have published, it would be impossible for us to move!
8. SO WHAT DO WE? We have one file copy of everything‚ right? If some of you happen to have your own private little personal selfish copies of your own, we not only can't afford to carry them with us, we can't afford for security's sake to even get that many copies in the mail for one home! We've got what's known as a co-op, we've got a number of families within one home, & when you've got this many people you certainly can't afford to get that much mail or that many duplicate copies in the mail, especially at any one post office‚ or you'll certainly arouse interest & curiosity if not suspicion, & maybe even persecution!
9. SO I'M ALL FOR THE HOME LIBRARY, AMEN?—One copy of each thing, & if you've got all of our pubs you've got 65 books plus a whole lot of other things on your shelf‚ & that ought to be enough for any Home no matter how many people you've got in it! Don't tell me you've all read all the old Letters, you haven't! You haven't even read all the new books yet, you haven't had time! Right? So you don't all have to have duplicate copies of each new publication as it comes out. You can share them, pass them around just like we do in this family.
10. SO THAT'S WHAT I'M ADVOCATING, THE HOME LIBRARY!—One copy of each, & if you happen to have more copies than that, you assemble everybody's copies of everything someplace where everybody can have access to them. I don't think we can afford to send out duplicate copies of everything anymore. We decided that a long time ago. Where we first started this new GN program we could not afford to send out a weekly every week‚ a mailing of duplicate copies to every home. You ought to be thankful you get two kinds of copies at every Home every other week, that's one copy a week & that's enough, & you can share those.
11. PASS'M AROUND & STICK'M BACK ON THE FAMILY BOOKSHELF!—AMEN?—GOOD IDEA? You folks please be generous with these, don't hang onto it unless you're reading it. If you're not reading it, give it to somebody else to be reading it. Now is that clear? Don't keep those copies in your bedroom & selfishly hoard them & keep them from the rest of the Family, since you're only getting two in a mailing. Share'm! Exchange'm! Save'm for others! Amen?—And save weight & money!—And Time!