[Nahgem]

Don't feel guilty. I can't speak for the library in question, but I know that at at the library where I work, when we get requests for books via ILL or just people asking why we don't have a title, if we can afford it, and if it fits our collection development outlines, we often try to buy it. Requests are one of the ways a library learns what their patrons want to be reading. For example, we're an academic library with a very small juvenile/YA collection, but we've gotten so many ILL requests for The Hunger Games that we've considered sending a purchase request to our acquisitions department. We rushed a purchase for the Steve Jobs biography based on a patron request.

You may have been the one to initially request the book, but chances are they didn't buy it "just" for you. Other people will eventually read it as well. But if nobody asks for something that the library isn't buying, then nobody can read it because nobody knows people want it. And even if you ARE the only one who ever uses it, some libraries are OK with that as well, since that's the risk they take when they buy something that only one person has requested.

As for the poll, I'm going with none-of-the-above. I'm ignoring the last two choices because they imply that libraries are irrelevant (or that people would like them to be). "Pay to play" is already sort of what happens, it just depends on which type of library you're talking about as to how the paying gets done. Assuming you're referring to public libraries, people usually pay by paying taxes, with membership fees being usually reserved for people who are out of district (and thus don't support with their taxes). "If you can afford to buy books, don't use the library" is just ridiculous. Aside from the fact that you've probably already "paid" for your library use with your taxes, libraries aren't just book repositories. My god, I don't know how long and how loudly librarians are going to have to keep shouting that before people finally get it.

Libraries offer resources that even the wealthy can't necessarily just have access to because they have money, or that aren't practical to buy on whims. Someone may be able to afford most of the books they want to buy, but paying $45 for a 5 page scholarly article on the scientific advances in developing genetically-enhanced glow-in-the-dark kittens is not really cost-effective (and, yes, that is a realistic cost estimate). Less facetiously, there are expensive technical manuals and textbooks, the research services a research librarian is trained to provide, periodical and journal subscriptions, some libraries let you borrow ereaders and tablets, some specialize in local history, some in genealogies. Librarians host various programs for the community, sometimes literacy based, sometimes not. I've even read about libraries that lend out things like power tools and cake pans and art.

And even if they didn't offer those other services, public libraries are a community resource. If you're part of the community, it shouldn't matter how much money you make or don't; it's still your library too.