Orlean weaves a story about modern libraries through the story of a massive fire on the Los Angeles Library where it lost 400,000 books. While that was one huge acute problem for a single library, Orlean investigates the problems facing modern libraries as the are forced to become community centers for those that have no other support. No libraries are not funded or equipped for this purpose, but they're open and anyone can come in to get warm or stay dry so they get stuck with this as an add-on civic duty.