Ted Gioia laments the loss of American arts, including jazz music, opera, books, and whatnot from the middle part of the century (Is Mid-20th Century American Culture Getting Erased?), but he says:
When you walk into a library, you understand immediately that it took centuries to create all these books.
Clearly, he has not been into a local library recently.
I suppose university libraries still have old books in them–depending upon how old the university libraries are themselves–but I am pretty sure I have long lamented how few books are in the local library branches here and how many of them are skewed toward contemporary books–and how you would have to order the classics via inter-library loan.
