The Salt Lake City library system is offering buyouts to its staff. This is not a strategic expansion. This is a managed exit.

The city is paying employees to abandon their posts. This is the slow death of the public commons. We are watching the institutional memory of Salt Lake City be erased.

The depressing features of this decay are evident.

• The permanent loss of trained librarians.
• The hollowed out remains of community hubs.
• The reduction of public services to mere shells.

The budget is the only thing that matters. The people are just an overhead cost. Once the staff is gone, the institution is just a building full of rotting paper.