LISNews: Librarian News

Now Magazine in Toronto has a Story on how libraries are dying due to increased pressure from book stores and coffee shops.

\"As circulation figures slide at Toronto\'s 98 library branches, critics complain that they\'re stuffy, outmoded and insensitive to T.O.\'s multicultural makeup. And now, far-seeing supporters of publicly supported reading are calling for big changes. \"If no one heeds their warnings and readers continue to seek too much solace in corporate book-merchandising, our library system, the second-largest in North America, will start to look like a white elephant -- a tax-funded white elephant.

\"The library needs a totally new game plan,\" says Toronto budget chief Tom Jakobek. \"The library\'s been run by the same people who\'ve been running it forever, and we haven\'t seen any real change.\"