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Originally Posted by JeremyR
The trouble is, at least where I live, libraries have long ago stopped focusing on books, but renting movies, providing internet access (providing computers, not just a hotspot), renting video games and whatnot.
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Yes, and why shouldn't they? They are providing access to today's media, whatever those happen to be at the time.
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Why should a publicly funded place directly compete with video rental stores/services? Or internet cafes?
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Or bookstores?
So who uses the internet in a library? Apart from quickly looking something up, or perhaps checking email, it's people who don't have access to it neither at home nor at work. Are you really suggesting that providing free (or cheap) access to books is good and proper and worth the tax money spent on it, but providing access to the internet is not?
We could argue about computer games and DVDs and such, perhaps, but then again no such distinction is made with books where practically anything goes.
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Every DVD bought could have been a book. Every video game 4-5 books.
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Really? I could find any number of DVDs that more worthy of being carried by a public library than many of their books.