So the Salinas (California) public libraries are shutting for lack of money. There’s got to be a better way to fund libraries, writes David Kipen. “Of course, the danger isn’t that the next young Steinbeck will have to take a bus to borrow some Waugh. The danger, plainly, is that he’ll find something better to do. To paraphrase P.T. Barnum, there’s a Steinbeck born every minute. The trick of a literate society lies in cultivating him, carefully but generously, so that he actually grows up to be Steinbeck.”