[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

My experience with libraries is that they can be one of the more useful government services. Ideally, they are places that can be a community's gateway to some of the things that create civilized people in a civilized society. A lot of the utopian experiments and "workingmen's improvement" efforts in the 19th century included libraries. For a lot of people, whatever education they got came from their own efforts in the libraries. You're right about the decline of the classics and some libraries' decision not to continue to shelve them. (There was something posted here about this a week or so ago.) To me, that's evidence of a society becoming that has become less literate. (There is other evidence as well.) Oh, we all read plenty of things, but what kinds of things? But I guess it's a case of you can lead a horse to water....

As for DVDs-- I guess a case can be made to have them, but I've noticed that the library that I go to has fewer of them than they used to.

As for the bums -- flush them out.

[RedQuill]

Ah, my friend...Like me, if you go into an antique store you will find toys that you once bought new.

Libraries once were a public asset arguably worth taxing society for, but things are different now. With the internet, particularly, access to literature is everywhere. It's tough to make the case for the buildings, the staff, the materials, the overhead, etc., etc. Alas, I hated to see mimeograph machines go too, but it's best to let these things pass fondly into memory.