The other day I came across a copy of George Monbiot's list of the top ten world-changing books, published in the Guardian a couple of years ago. Having read the top title, Bernard Lietaer's The Future of Money, of which I am now preparing a book review, I decided to read the second book on the list, Soil and Soul by Alastair McIntosh.

All it took was an email to Charlie at Eudora Welty library and in a few days the book was here on interlibrary loan and ready to be picked up. It came from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, a small liberal arts college founded by Quakers. The librarians at the Lilly Library went to the trouble of packaging and sending it to Jackson, Mississippi, to someone they had never heard of, putting it in the hands of total strangers, and trusting that it will be returned.

Living as we do in a pay-for-everything society, it is a deep comfort to know that there is a network of institutions staffed by people whose entire purpose is to give something away without any expectation of profit or return on investment. No decent society can exist without the leavening of those generous souls and the institutions that nurture and shelter them.

The economy of the business world is based on acquisition: acquiring more money, more power, more stuff. The economy of the soul is just the opposite: success is how much you can give away without looking back.

The soul of a library is a very great soul indeed.