Amen on this. Librarians are probably at the top of my list for modern day sainthood. I was gifted more by the existence of the set of libraries I frequented

Amen on this. Librarians are probably at the top of my list for modern day sainthood. I was gifted more by the existence of the set of libraries I frequented growing up, than by anything else. Mind, The Internet does not Win out, because fundamentally, I see the Internet as a Library that ne'er-do-wells have been left to their own devices to pollute and destroy, but even an unorganized Library is still a Library as long as there are still seekers trawling it's depths in search of Wisdom. Unfortunately, there are those that would unmake such repositories. To corrupt them, or otherwise limit their scope in furtherance of their own ends. To control and maintain the asymmetry of information that a Little Boy/Girl living on the Wrong Side of the Tracks(TM) never gets the chance to get ideas unbefitting their station. Knowledge is Power. Literacy and Free, unrestricted access to information are the keys that further the dissemination and exercise of said Power. An attack on a Library, in my opinion, is to be met with a wrath far in excess of catching someone in the act of poisoning the town well. Unfortunately, that behavior, (poisoning the well) seems to have been normalized to the point of being damn near First World Tradition.