I'm not all against digital seller, but at least when I was a kid, I read in the bookstore almost every day after school. I've only got the allowance of one book per week from my parents, so the bookstore was the only way for me to read though a few books a day. I'd like for bookstores like these to continue to exist.
For some reason libraries have very, very small scifi collections. I'd get my scifi from used bookstores (long before Amazon). My favorite was a hole-in-the-wall about a mile walk away. You could return the books after reading them for half price store credit. I read hundreds of books that way.
I few years ago I got into buying boxes of 50-100 random scifi books from ebay. In bulk they're about $.50 each.
The local library is networked in with all the other libraries in King County. You can order a book from anywhere in their system. It's still a thin supply of scifi, and wait times for single copies are often several months.
Ideally yes. However, the quality of the books, and the reading space provided by libraries are largely dependant on government budget. Those would be nice if you live in big cities. In a small ones? They really depends.
I think in most library systems you can demand literally any book you want that has ever been published in the modern age and have it delivered to your local library. They often don't advertise it - but ask for it.
