public library, n.Definitions

A Public library is a building housing thousands upon thousands of books . . . except the one you want.

A Public library is a place that affords, more than any other place, a striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes.

A Public library is the most enduring of memorials, the trustiest monument for the preservation of an event or a name or an affection... for it, and it only, is respected by wars and revolutions, and survives them.