[divided]

Comparing size without considering population will only lead to bad conclusions. Could you imagine someone claiming cancer deaths in Germany aren’t a problem because it doesn’t have near as many deaths as the US, it’s not even close? Sounds silly, right?

The US is reportedly 62nd in the world in libraries per capita. [1] Given the US has more wealth per capita than most of the world as well, I think claiming we underfund our public library system is fairly obvious.

[1] https://onlinegrad.syracuse.edu/blog/best-countries-book-lov...

[Kamq]

> Given the US has more wealth per capita than most of the world as well, I think claiming we underfund our public library system is fairly obvious.

This is only the case if you think the proper level of funding is a function of population size or wealth instead of whatever is required to obtain sufficient results. If you're looking for results, it seems the proper level of funding would actually scale with population density (sparser areas require higher funding per capita to provide the same access).

I think you can make a case for that sort of model, but I don't think it's "fairly obvious".

[yucky]

Mentioned elsewhere, but books in circulation (overall and per capita). Also, in the US you can get almost any book from elsewhere sent to your local library at no charge.