As an Indian student in US, the quality of city public libraries in the country was one of the most memorable facets of my American experience. At times, I enjoyed spending time in the city libraries more than in the university libraries. Admittedly, I lived only in college towns in East Coast and Midwest. So, they were perhaps not entirely representative of the country. But i truly appreciated the effort made by cities to have public libraries.

The town I grew up in India had a decent public library. Not a great collection, but for a young autistic kid like me, it felt like a heaven on earth. Every district town used to have a public library until early 1990s. Ironically, as the country became more affluent with economic liberalisation and privatisation, those district libraries declined.

I am rambling but Americans should not take their libraries for granted.