Here’s an article from Susan Perez Tobias, of the Wichita Eagle, on the importance of libraries:

In Age of High-Tech, Public Library Still a Treasure

I love the serendipity of libraries, the joy of finding something amazing while you’re looking for something else. Bookstores have that too, of course. So does Amazon, which elbows you at every turn to say, “Hey, you liked that book? You might like this one, too,” or “Customers who bought that book also bought these other 10.”

Those customers have much bigger budgets than me. The library doesn’t care. The library says, “Come in. We’re open. No charge.”