Bad news first: There are 49 libraries in Florida’s Miami-Dade County. Twenty-two of them are about to be closed. Some last-minute budget rearrangements might save six of those, but that will leave sixteen—one-third of the county’s libraries—on the chopping block.
A tax hike would have saved the libraries—along with several emergency rescue vehicles and the jobs of a few hundred county employees—but it proved too unpopular.
There’s good news for libraries, too, though: In Texas, an abandoned Walmart has been converted into “the largest single-floor public library in the United States.”
Judging by the pictures, it’s a little more inviting than a big-box store, and people seem to be responding to that: “the library saw new user registration rise by 23% within the first month following the new library’s opening.”
Plus: a couple airports are starting to host mini-libraries. (A perfect invention for those of us who, like The Simpsons‘ Hans Moleman, have been booted from airport bookstores for wanting to read something besides Crichton or King.)
