It's a compelling story, BUT, are libraries really the best way to solve this social problem? Most tax payers don't realize just how expensive their library system is. In my county, we spend $90 million per year for our libraries - about 0.5% of property taxes. As a home owner, neary 15% of the cost of your home, is being funneled to the library system.

I am very in favor of community public investment, but I am skeptical that our libraries are an efficient allocation of the very large claim they already have on our public taxes.

Note in this story how the grandfather was so poorly served by the system. It's not designed to serve those who need the system most. In the end he only gets reluctant help from someone overqualified (overpaid) to give him the kind of assistance he needs.

Unlike other suggestions in this thread, I do not agree that the answer is to prop up the failing library system by pretending to use its services to make their numbers look better. We should be demanding that our libraries evolve to remove wasteful and expensive services (that many of its users can already afford to pay for directly), and focus on the needs of those who cannot pay.

Our average library staff salary and benefits cost $25/hr - couldn't we double the assistance to the underprivileged by paying trained "Web Assistants" $10/hr to help them instead?