Libraries are in crisis. Right? I mean, that is all we hear. All around the nation, budgets are being slashed, hours shortened, librarians laid off. And on top of that we have e-books... doing something. God dammit, e-books. You are always ruining everything.
What is the future of the library, in a world of the financial crisis, where all inessential services are being slashed in city budgets — inessential services ranging from health care for the poor to libraries to a large chunk of Camden, New Jersey’s police force — in ineffective austerity measures? My infallible editor sent me to the 2012 Public Library Association conference in Philadelphia to find out.
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