Comment by jltsiren

Governments provide services to all kinds of people. Some services exist to help people with specific needs, while others just try to make everyone's lives a little bit nicer. Public libraries are in the latter category, at least in Finland.

Libraries, like institutions in general, evolve over time. Libraries have extended their range services from books and study spaces to newspapers and magazines to music recordings to computers, printers, and internet access to all kinds of devices to event spaces and meeting rooms, and so on. At some point, you have to decide whether all these services should be under the umbrella of the same organization, or if you should create a new organization. But because new organizations mean more administrative overhead, you only create them if you expect it to improve the services.

Many of the more traditional libraries I've used were located in various community centers. In addition to the library, those centers might have event spaces, exhibition spaces, adult education programs, youth centers, and so on. Oodi might have fancier architecture and a more central location, but it's fundamentally not that different.