I agree, but there are a few potential drawbacks.

There are more coffee shops than libraries. Your path to a coffee shop is generally shorter than your path to a library.

This problem gets even worse when you add the dimension of time. Libraries are closed a lot. Philistines keep cutting their funding, and they respond by shortening their hours. Unless your working hours coincide neatly with library opening hours you'll sometimes need an alternative.

Finally, there's the social dimension. It's not easy to start a random conversation in a library, and it's essentially impossible to answer the phone. (Unless you are a big jerk and your local librarians are insufficiently ruthless.) Now, if you're trying to program such an environment is a godsend, but if you're trying to run a business programming is often the least of your problems. You have to do sales and marketing and client management and the occasional round of procurement or insurance shopping or whatnot, any or all of which may require you to talk on the phone occasionally.

That said, whenever I'm near a library during its opening hours I head over there instead of towards the coffee shop. Here in Boston the library situation is good: The public libraries are fairly numerous and popular, and some of the more enlightened universities let civilians into their libraries, which have longer hours and better study spaces.

I always just went down to the lobby to do phone calls; how many kinds of calls can you reasonably do from a coffee shop?

Maybe all the coffee shops I like are just way smaller than the ones you all use.

Mostly: I had great success working from libraries, and I know that many coffee shops do not like people working from them all day.

> I can't think of many reasons to work out a coffee shop instead of a public library.

Well, the most obvious reason would be for the coffee.

Seriously though, I think this varies by city. In Seattle, it's very much culturally accepted to work from coffee shops; it's practically what they're there for.

The main library near downtown Raleigh just added a nice coffee bar during a recent renovation. Someone on the library board is paying attention.

Unfortunately, not everyone is fortunate enough to have access to a good library. I happen to have a good branch nearby and a beautiful main branch that isn't too far that I also use once a week when my local branch is closed. Oh, that's another issue. Libraries have very limited hours, even worse than a coffee shop. My library opens at 10, closes at 6 or 5 and is closed on Friday.

> The library is quiet, is designed to provide work spaces, far larger, and generally very pleasant to be in.

Not my experience at all.

Me too, my library is fairly small as it's rarely used by my community and if I sat there all day it would be very awkward as i'd probably be one of the only people in there and I doubt anyone usually works from there.

Coffee shops on the other hand are usually fairly quiet in something like a starbucks (really depends on location and time). Of course when it's rush hour this all changes.

Not all libraries want you either. In my home town, the main library is so filled with students and high schoolers "hanging out" that honest researchers didn't have any more space. They started a policy that if you don't need the resources of the reading rooms (books, machines, ...), you're not supposed to use them.

My hometown has >1mio population, 3 universities and a lot of students occupying the libraries. Coffee shops can be a comfortable alternative.

Here is 1 reason: more chance of seeing a cute girl :)

Cuter, smarter and nicer girls to be found in the library, is my experience.