So apparently millenials love the public library for anything but the books. "Many public reference centers have shifted their focus from offering things to br

So apparently millenials love the public library for anything but the books. "Many public reference centers have shifted their focus from offering things to browse and borrow to providing services and being a social space.” How this represents a library in any sense escapes me. I'm old enough to have been taught to use the paper card catalog in school, and I was a library aide from middle school through high school. I always thought of them as temples of knowledge, but temples in which the relics could be borrowed by anyone. This along with the concept of borrowing and returning always seemed to be a cornerstone of the ideal of an egalitarian society. So it breaks my heart to walk into literally any of the local public libraries and see what has become of their collections. They all now compete at offering the most salubrious lounge experience, to facilitate which they have in some cases removed as much as half of their former floor collection. I do believe that in the 21st century the library has an important function to serve in providing a place to access the Net for people who cannot otherwise do so. Making space for this is justifiable in my view. Making space for someone to drink a latte in a taxpayer-funded place of access to information is not. There are many, many places that will provide such services far better than the public library.