"Can public libraries ever work?"

An interesting article from the Dayton Daily News about how public libraries might fare in the political realm if they were first proposed today.

The collision between libertarian/free market ideas and the practical usefulness of libraries is one that I've detoured around many times. I've usually convinced myself that libraries are defensible because they are a cultural record that no business would seek to provide otherwise. (But does even that weak argument apply to public libraries which primarily concern themselves with supplying only this week's bestseller, while unceremoniously trashing older material?)

Thoughts?