This is precisely what I have been thinking while reading all these comments, but unable to express so succintly.
This is such a straw man. Unless you have an actual academic need for an actual Shakespeare first folio, you can read that text without needing an original printing. If you have such a need, the Palo Alto Public Library isn’t likely to have a it there for the asking.
Academic libraries at universities have their purpose, but your local public library isn’t going to typically be used by Shakespeare scholars.
Reading restricted collection books is a pretty low percentage of why people visit libraries. Reading ultra rare, priceless books is almost non-existent as a percentage of library visits.
First, old-fashioned academic libraries existed; later, public lending libraries existed, but only because various people noticed that the existence of academic libraries was a good thing thing that should be more widely accessible to people outside academia and/or religious institutions. At no point has the purpose of public lending libraries been to provide the community centre and entertainment resource that some people want them to be.
