The photographs of those librarys were simply astonishing. I used to work in an old library---not nearly as old as any in those pictures, but 100 years old or so, which to me, as a teenager, seemed very old---with huge oak book cases, big wooden tables, an oak front desk, etc., and it felt like a real library to me. When the county system took over, and expanded, it became just another overly-bright, earth-tone painted of every other contemporary library, and I never went back.