u/Few-Club5033

Where I live, residents of the state can get free library cards from any public library system in the state. I have two cards; one with the library system where I live and pay property taxes, and the second is from a library system in a more populous metro area of my state, that has a much larger Libby collection.

Sometimes, when I go to check out a book, my home library system will only have one copy available, and the other library system will have multiple copies available. In that case, I never know which is the better choice:

1. check out from the larger library system so that my home system will still have their 1 copy available for others to check out while I’m reading the book, or
2. check out from my home system because I know that ebook lending is costly to libraries so it’s probably more responsible to incur the borrowing cost from the library that’s supported by my property tax money.

I always dither for a few seconds and then sometimes I go with option 1, and other times I choose option 2. Which would you choose?