Why so many Czech libraries? Rather than just linger on as an eccentricity from a bygone age, though, the surviving Czech libraries are doing what they can to stay vibrant and relevant. The library law survived the German occupation, the communist era and even the breakup with Slovakia in the early 1990s. There are libraries everywhere you look in the country — it has the densest library network in the world, according to a survey conducted for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. To save money, the requirement was dropped in 2001, when there were about 6,019 libraries in the country; since then, about 11 percent have merged or closed.

Source: New York Times July 21, 2016 09:00 UTC