A dirty little secret about America is that public libraries have become de facto daytime shelters for the nation's street people while librarians are increasingly our unofficial social workers for the homeless and mentally disturbed.
Congress needs to act now to reverse the E.P.A.'s closing of tax-payer funded libraries, which contain potentially life-saving information about our environment.
The White House has begun closing the Enviromental Protection Agency's research libraries to the public and to its own staff, cementing Bush's reputation as usher of a new dark age.
