I was in the reception area of a local hotel yesterday, waiting to meet an elderly couple of my aquaintence, and I saw a discreet door marked library. I stepped inside to find that the room had one bookshelf, taking up rather less than half a wall, and even this was very far from full. These were its contents:
A complete edition of the Waverly novels
About 35 percent of an editions of Dickens
A number of leather bound works by Burgess and Maclean (dissapointingly I'm talking about Alan Burgess and Alastair Maclean)
Two copies of Home Doctor
A work designed to help those seeking to defend themselves in court
An illustrated atlas of the British Empire
A handfull of travel guides

Clearly nobody will ever read any of these books, apart from possbly the travel guides, although I do like the idea of taking a holiday in order to spend long hours by the fire identifying symptoms in the Home Doctor or planning subtle legal defences to get you off your latests public decency charges. I think it is clear that the patrons of this hotel, like so many students of my aquaintence, find an area called 'Library' a congenial place to shout loudly down their mobile phones and drink carbonated beverages.

Afterwards we took a turn round a nearby cathedral, and I read a number of charming epitaphs and inscriptions, including the grave of a young chap killed by greek brigands and a monument to the coal miners of the area. This cheered me up considerably. Remember, there is always someone worse off than yourself, and that person is very often a miner.