This is weird:
Checking Out [John J. Miller]
Are public libraries supposed to repositories of the best that has been thought and said, or are they supposed to compete with bookstores for customers? In Fairfax County, Va., librarians are removing classics that haven't been checked out recently so they can make more room for bestsellers and titles that Oprah likes. I've got some pretty strong libertarian tendencies, but I've always had a soft spot for public libraries. If they merely become government-run versions of what the private sector delivers so efficiently nowadays—the ability to purchase just about any book ever printed, and often at a very good price if you're willing to buy from a secondhand seller—then maybe we don't really need them anymore.
Since when do bookstores allow you to check out books for no fee, finish them, and bring them back? That's the primary difference between libraries and bookstores -- they make reading cheap, if not free. As it happens, John and I work at magazines. Books magically flow into our offices, and those that don't can be freely ordered from the kind elves staffing publisher publicity departments. But for those whose employment (or lack thereof) eschews such perks, $25.95 (or a bit over $20 on Amazon, once shipping is included) for Special Topics in Calamity Physics is steep. Libraries make it less so. That's their function: Not to serve as a dusty repository of the classics, but to economically democratize the world of letters.
So far as the Fairfax branches go, I'm all for keeping the hits of yesteryear available, but they are, I''ll remind John, delivered fairly efficiently by the private sector, and for dirt-cheap if you're willing to go secondhand. The Education of Henry Adams, one of the removed classics, is available for $1.44 on Amazon -- $13.05 cheaper than the cheapest copy of Special Topics. So it would seem the libraries could do more good by making the pricier, contemporary novels widely available, rather than duplicating the inexpensive back catalogues of the private sector. Indeed, it seems oddly un-libertarian to demand that libraries paternalistically ignore market pressures and consumer preferences in order to stock the titles that educated elites have deemed "classics." Nothing against the classics, of course, but it would certainly seem that in the age of Amazon and online used retailers, libraries should ensure their stock hews as close to the preferences of their users as possible.
