Anger as a Private Company Takes Over Libraries

A private equity-backed company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, growing into the country's fifth-largest library system.

Now the company, Library Systems & Services, has been hired for the first time to run a system in a relatively healthy city, Santa Clarita, Calif., setting off an intense and often acrimonious debate about the role of outsourcing in a ravaged economy, The New York Times's David Streitfeld writes.