Frisky070802's Journal: The end of public libraries?

Is this the beginning of the end? The NY Times reports (firstborn son required) that Salinas, the hometown of the famous John Steinbeck, and for whom one of its public libraries is named, is about to shut its libraries for lack of funding. Public libraries throughout the US are suffering big cutbacks, and strapped taxpayers are unwilling to do things like a proposed sales tax hike to fund public services. I wonder whether this will spurn a public outcry and a nationwide donation campaign, or simply the most famous in a long line of failures past and future?

Sadly, This May Go Largely Unnoticed

[Allen Zadr]

I find myself, and my children doing 'investigation' on the Internet or at their in-school library. I think it's likely that public library closings will go - mostly - unnoticed.

I'm lucky enough to live in a city with a brand-new library (built last year), and public support for such - but we are a well-off outlying suburb. I'm ashamed, as well, to say that I've only gone there once.

During construction - when they tore down the old one - and relocated the reference books to a community center... I never

Re:Sadly, This May Go Largely Unnoticed

[Frisky070802]

Yeah, my sense was also that much can now be done online. On the other hand, ever since my commute increased to 70mi one-way almost 3 years ago, I've become very friendly with my local library, borrowing audiobooks on a constant basis! I'd very much miss it if something happened to it, and I'd also probably sink mucho dinero into buying the same stuff.

It's a bit funny, because I only borrow paper books from the library for myself on rare occasions -- mostly because much of that form of reading has alway