I'm a little surprised that the library seems to you to be primarily about lending "content." I think of the library as about teaching people how to find and use information. I don't see any reduction in that role's importance. I see only the usual continuing reluctance to fund the public availability of that advice for adults who aren't wealthy and educated, and whose use of services for finding and employing information to their advantage might be socially disruptive.

So I expect libraries to continue to be useful and to continue to starve precisely because they are useful. Except in wealthy suburban towns where the children are cared for after school and the adult inhabitants are securely in the ruling class already. That's why library funding is everywhere local: so those who have can ensure that they primarily continue to get.

-- EbenMoglen - 30 Nov 2008