Two points:

Many of those relevant functions were picked up by libraries over the years due to the lack of, or cutbacks to, other government services.

Some people prefer, or can only use, services offered through libraries because they offer them with few, or no, questions asked. That is rarely the case with dedicated services, where funding often has more conditions tied to it.

Personally, I believe these are important for a functional society more generally.

At least every other week if not more often. I also use the library digital services a good bit. There's always lots of people at the libraries I go to browsing books, I imagine they're also checking them out.

> it could probably disappear and no one would miss it.

The libraries I go to have so many people using their various services constantly. People studying and reading. Kids playing, exploring and reading. 3D printers buzzing. Classes and events being hosted.

> one extra field trip for every school child per year

You're going to replace something lots of people use across all age ranges constantly with a single day event for only children once a year? Sounds like a terrible loss IMO.

I agree a library is way more than just a place to get books today. They do offer a lot of community center features, and I think modern library designs should cater to that need as well. But they're not homeless shelters, they're not daycares. They still have their own specific use, a general place of learning and knowledge for all people. A place for all the community to come together, not just little kids or just the homeless. It's just the way we go about sharing that has evolved a bit over time compared to the stodgy old libraries of the past.

And your thought was my first thought. It's as if the soup kitchens were shut down because somebody had stolen all of the prayer beads, meaning that none of the homeless could pray before they ate.

Libraries have now simply become official copyright access points. I lived in libraries my entire childhood. I remember in my teens being both depressed and excited that my local library was going to close down for six months to be gutted and remodeled. I was soon the one that was gutted when I found out that after the remodel, the library would have a 20% smaller capacity for books. I had to conclude that the remodel was mostly so it would look better in photographs, people would get kickbacks, and people would get resume-padding.

Libraries have been retconned into necessary public spaces but in that case, the books are just an excuse. Get rid of the excuse and consciously create necessary public spaces. I've literally heard their existence justified by the fact that homeless people clog them up and sleep in them, which has been one of the major reasons for declines in library use imo. Just take care of homeless people.

I'd even rank access to a librarian, especially a research librarian, as of higher value than a building full of books. AI has forced us to take a different approach to intellectual property, whether we're going to consciously do that in the public interest and design systems that will protect the positives that we attribute to copyright, or whether we're going to do that through inaction by allowing the wealthiest people in the world to rent human knowledge back to us without having paid a dime for it.

I'd prefer that we govern, but if we're going to go the passive route of insisting that nothing a rich man does is a crime, we can continue to settle it through piracy. Either way, libraries are cooked.