I'm just wondering who libraries, anywhere in the world, are supposed to be serving these days. I live in Auckland, New Zealand. I pay rates (city taxes) of $3,000 or so a year towards upkeep of local libraries and other amenities. It had been some years since I visited my local library looking for helpful books for research on NZ (what with Wikipedia and all). When I asked to be directed to the New Zealand section -- what used to be the popular section in my day -- the staffer thought a while, scratched his head -- and finally referred me to a Dewy-Decimal number, might have been 995 point something. Well, I looked for that, couldn't find it, but couldn't miss 8 shelves devoted to Mandarin language studies. This is an ordinary suburban library we're talking about, in a very ordinary suburb, in what is, or used to be, the Western World. Globalisation might have some advantages (I'm making a big assumption here), but the idea that it should be so over-archingly dominant over local issues makes me wanna puke.

@BookDeath One for you. Please comment.

Ha ! that would be doing everyone a favor !

The librarian must be a drip!

Awesome. I bet it was near the bottom where things trickle down to.

Imagine! The Bible and economics in the same category.

Right where they belong.

LMAO funny good for you

Good for you, hope it was the voodoo subsection.