I visited my local library at the weekend, on a whim. (The weekend before, I'd been to the British Library for the first time, so I guess this inspired me.)
The computing sections at public libraries do not tend to inspire me, on the whole. Southampton's is actually relatively good - there are four tall bookcases assigned to computing, although one is introductory IT (Word and Excel), and another seems to be assigned to graphic design (Photoshop). Still, the two in the middle do have some programming texts - you just have to work around "Red Hat Linux 7 for Dummies" and the like.
I think the trouble is, computing books become obsolete so quickly; you don't get point releases of Shakespeare every six months. I also suspect the low demand for serious computing texts creates a vicious circle, where the type of people who might want that sort of thing know better than to look in the library for it.
It got me thinking - could this be changed? Could I change it?