How does borrowing books work in the UK?

Google "<your town name> library", there will probably be a website explaining what you need to register. ID/proof of address is common but funnily enough I registered in my new town's library literally just this afternoon, and I didn't need either. You get a card and then you can borrow books, also often cds, dvds and stuff as well. Occasionally there are things you can't borrow, you can only read in the premises, but this tends to be more for non-fiction, like specialist academic journals, old newspaper archives and stuff. General novels I'd expect to be borrow-able. Typically you get 2 or 3 weeks until you have to return the books. DVDs are often shorter, maybe a week, or only a few days, but it depends on the library. If you're late returning things you probably have to pay fines. (They will email reminders.) But if you don't finish them that quickly you can usually renew them (online, these days) for another x weeks -- unless someone else has specifically requested that book in which case it might not let you renew. You can even request books your library doesn't have, if one of the other libraries in the same 'group' of libraries has it (be that county or whatever). There are computers to search for what's available, if it's in the system, you can request it, and they will transport it to your local branch for you. (Libraries are fucking brilliant!) You can borrow by taking things up to the desk, but there are probably also self-service machines where you scan your library card barcode and then plop the books on there and it somehow magically reads what book it is. Don't be shy of asking the librarian(s) for help, 98% of them are really helpful and (unlike some in this thread, ahem) will be especially delighted to introduce someone unfamiliar with libraries to how things work rather than mocking.