The best way to describe this story is to let Fox News describe it themselves — as they do in this report: “They eat up millions of your hard earned tax dollars. It’s money that could be used to keep your child’s school running. So with the internet and e-books, do we really need millions for libraries?”

Hey, as Fox’s Anna Davlantes puts it, “should these institutions — that date back to 1900 B.C. — be on the way out?”

In short, it’s one of those baffling Fox reports. First, it points out, “There are 799 public libraries in Illinois. And they’re busy. People borrow more than 88 million times a year.” However, as Davlantes points out, “That’s money that could go elsewhere — like for schools, the CTA, police or pensions.” Well, I guess it could. Hey, it could even go to Davlantes’ salary!

Then Fox concludes that libaries are, well, unnecessary.

In fact, so dastardly is this expenditure that Fox sent a reporter — undercover! — to “One of the nation’s biggest and busiest libraries is the $144-million Harold Washington Library in the [Chicago] Loop. It boasts a staggering 5,000 visitors a day!.” [Yes, they used two pieces of final punctuation.]

So what did they find “In an hour, we counted about 300 visitors. Most of them were using the free internet. The bookshelves? Not so much.”