Philadelphia was home to the first hospital in America, the first town fire engine, and the first lending library.
So it's fitting, in a way, that Philadelphia would go for another first: the first major American city to close its public library system. Yep. Close completely:
All Free Library of Philadelphia Branch, Regional and Central Libraries Closed Effective Close of Business October 2, 2009
The author of the announcement goes on to add that Philadelphians should return all their library books by October 1. After all, we can't have people continuing to read after the library closes. That would just be wrong. Those books need to be locked up where people can't get at them.
In any case, Philadelphia's trying to establish city-wide wireless access, so if all goes well Philadelphians won't need libraries anymore. I mean, it's all on the Intertubes anyway.*
*And it's not like that many people used the Philly library system anyway. They only had 6.6 million visits in 2007. And you know some people went more than once just to pad the numbers.
*And it's not like that many people used the Philly library system anyway. They only had 6.6 million visits in 2007. And you know some people went more than once just to pad the numbers.
1 comment:
Well this is horrible and sad.
I thought the BPL was the first lending library? Damn, I have been giving hundreds of school kids visiting Boston the wrong information.
Post a Comment