The Matrix Runs on Windows XP

That's kinda sad.

Geez, go check out some of the classics, quick!

Oh, no. That means nothing left on the shelves but Danielle Steel and all that other faddish trash...
Although, personally, I like to own classics so I can write in them.

That's bloody awful ...

This is why open source ILS for libraries are important. It gives the power back to the library, not the accountants who own some geeks.

Wikipedia ILS and see whats available.

It is sad. when I look for certain books that I thought would be standard at my library, all I come up with is audiobooks. We're talking Slaughterhouse Five, The Picture of Dorian Gray...

thats just sad, but whats sadder is that no one is reading them anymore.

Honestly, when I read a classic, I buy it. Classics are so cheap, and I can take all the time I need. The only books I check out from the library was rare academic books or art books, both of which are too expensive to own.

Geez, how stuffy and elitist can we all sound today?
Dorian Gray? Come on - that's like the dullest thing Wilde wrote.

We've lost the literature of entire civilizations before. This is just the gradual process. How many people are going to check out Samuel Pepys' diary? How many plays by 17th-century playwrights other than Shakespeare are performed nowadays? How many of us have read Chaucer lately? You know, for fun.

Funny how in the "Information Age", libraries have become less and less relevant to our daily lives.

Ted, just so you feel better -- I bought a nice hardcover copy of The Canterbury Tales not too long ago and have been reading a story now and then just for fun. But the news about that library is just nauseating.