While I understand the negative reaction of most people to this article, my own feelings are not so negative. I only read two kinds of books. Technical books on computers and philosophy. I live in Bradenton, FL and have visited both the Bradenton and Sarasota library. There wasn't a single book in either library that I was interested in. The technical books were all five years out of date and the philosophy section didn't have but a couple of books in it, none of which were worth reading. I know libraries in big cities have a lot to offer, but for most of us in small towns, pickings are slim. As a result, a large amount of my expendable cash goes to Amazon.
I just read your post. Sarasota County and, I believe Manatee County County too, has access to something called Alley Cat. Using your library card, you can search all the libraries in Florida who have their holdings in that catalog. It also provides access to OCLC, which is the worldwide catalog. If you don't find what you are looking for in your local library, you can use this service and have books ordered from other libraries and sent to your local library. This does take awhile, but it's often a way to get the books you couldn't otherwise get. Ask your reference libray for help. There is no charge for this.
I work for one of the counties that you mentioned and I'm sorry that you couldn't find what you needed. I hope that you filled out a patron request. We are not as speedy as a bookstore, but we do try to honor patron requests as much as possible.
I am 100% certain that not everyone in the country shares your exact same reading habits of reading only technical books and philosophy, so you should have stated for me pickings are slim.