I was excited about the Mandel Public Library when I moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, in early 2023. The city was on the rise, and Fodor’s Travel had named Mandel the fourth most beautiful public library in America.
Then I started going there.
I watched a security guard tell a man who appeared to be homeless that he wasn’t allowed back for another month. In the new books section, a guy yelled into his phone that he’d been kicked off the bus for arguing with a driver. Other homeless people slept in chairs and snored; the smell made you hold your breath.
Beautiful though it was, with high rounded ceilings and a coffee shop in the lobby, I wondered how people could use this library as a place to read and study. The answer, I soon discovered, is that increasingly, they don’t.
Between 2012 and 2019, according to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, visits to the Mandel Library declined 27 percent, and total circulation—the number of items, including e-books, borrowed by library patrons—fell 26 percent.
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Author: Zac Bissonnette
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