My local library observes "coffee shop rules." People sit with their laptops and take phone calls from wherever they receive them. Even the librarians are loud. It's fucking bullshit.
Libraries are struggling to maintain perceived relevance.
I'd like to slap people who say they aren't relevant or useful, but I don't have that much slap in me. As physical books become more of an out-of-date phenomenon (thanks to the Kindles and nooks and tablets and Wikipedias and such,) people are going to see the necessity of libraries as silly.
It's why you see "libraries should be hackerspaces!" make the rounds in blogs (and at least one library in the northeast is doing this.) I went to a new library up the road recently that had as much floorspace dedicated to audiobooks, DVDs, and CDs as it did to physical books.
I've recently read someone say that libraries provide one thing that no other building does: a place where anyone can work or study with zero pressure to spend money. That addresses your comment about "coffee shop rules."
While I still want to slap people who think libraries are irrelevant, they absolutely can't stay as just a place to check out books. Owning an internet-capable device is a lot more affordable than owning a recent encyclopedia, so computer courses are a natural thing for libraries to provide. I definitely like hackerspaces in adjacent floorspace. Chicago libraries allow residents to check out museum passes (though, access to this has dwindled quite a bit.) I believe some libraries allow patrons to check out iPads; I'd love to see an extensive ereader loaning program, though it'd require publishing companies to be less of a sack of assholes about ebook ToS.
I noticed my local library got rid of about fifty percent of its few remaining books a couple of weeks ago. The extra space means the body of the building is now devoted to activities relating to schools, I think.
As somebody who once did work experience here: http://tinyurl.com/d28gxz4, I was a bit puzzled to be in an almost bookless library.
I suspect "coffee shop rules" are the future of libraries.
Oh, never mind. I have seen some libraries that have very low usage rates of books compared to computers and I would not mourn a scaling down of their books on hand as long as they kept a strong catalog.
My university has a rule: the higher the floor, the quieter it gets. The 3rd floor is so quiet, if your laptop fan turns on, people give you death stares.
The last time I was in a coffee shop in Minneapolis, everyone using a laptop glared at me for talking, presumably because they were working (it was 10:00 AM on a work day). Go figure.
For some algorithims, it can be difficult to predict how much time will be spent processing a particular hunk of data even when it's instantaneously accessible.
I was driving by a Xerox site the other day with my 15-year-old nephew and he asked, "What's "Xerox?" (He didn't even know how to pronounce properly). He'd never even heard the word "xerox" used as a verb for photocopying, even.
