Worst of all Libraries have become Media Centers. Our old library down town was musty, short on space and had signs bragging about the new indoor plumbing. But it was full of books. In quite a variety of subjects both fiction and non fiction.
Then the city built a new media center. Clean, spacious, beautiful offices for the staff, great computer stations and comfortable meeting rooms. But the book content is less than 1/3 of what was held at the old library. They have had to put books in storage. Seems the Architect miscalculated the amount of shelf space needed. Guess that 1 book, 2 book, 3 book concept was not covered in Architectural design school.
I miss the old library. Fortunately the branch library has not been renovated so it still has lots of books for a building its size.
I saw them build new libraries years ago. But rather than "cluter" their nice new shelves with a bunch of "old mangled books", they left the shelves mostly empty as they were stocked with new titles.
And meanwhile the downtown library hoarded collections and kept much in storage (which is part of the reason for the annual purging).
Rather than give up parts of the library (which already has an interbranch loan system) to other branches, they stored books and deprived other libraries of books.
Why couldn't they have had basic standard texts at most branches with a focus on petrochemical, sports, cooking, entertainment, art, texas history, european history, medical, etc. at different branches where they might be more referenced?