Not true. Somehow, everyone has decided that public libraries need to provide public Internet access, digitize materials, run web servers, and all with no additional funding (except the rare soft money) or training.

When you consider that public libraries have been under attack by the Christian right, pay peanuts and are having to answer to city governments that only understand statistics, it is amazing that public libraries do as much as they do. If it were not for dedicated library staff willing to work for a third of what they could get in the corporate world, the entire system would collapse.

Before deciding that libraries have the money to do this, but are just being lazy, go look at a few public library budgets in different parts of the country and in different sized communities. You'll be shocked at how much most libraries do with so little.