Everyone doing this kind of research checks the same first few things: the walk score, the school ratings, the drive time to the nearest airport. Almost nobody checks the library — and it might be the single most revealing amenity a small town has, precisely because nobody's optimizing it for outsiders.
A library that's thriving tells you something a chamber-of-commerce brochure won't: hours long enough that a working parent can actually use them, a summer reading program with real turnout, a librarian who knows the regulars by name, a meeting room that's booked out most weeknights. If remote work is part of the plan, it's also worth checking desk space and wifi at 10am on a random Tuesday — a good branch library in a Remote Work Haven town can double as a free coworking space with better light than the nearest chain coffee shop, and it never asks you to buy a fourth latte to justify sitting there all afternoon.
The building itself usually tells the same story as its hours. A library that's been renovated in the last decade, with money for it found somewhere in a small municipal budget, is a town that's still investing in itself in ways that don't show up on a listing. One running on folding tables and a card catalog that time forgot is telling you something too — not necessarily that the town has stopped trying, but that it's worth asking what other civic infrastructure is in the same shape.
It's also one of the few amenities you can actually test on a normal visit, the kind we've written about before — no reservation, no membership, no pretending to be a local. Walk in on a weekday afternoon, see who's there and what they're doing, and you'll come away with a better read on a town's actual day-to-day than an hour of scrolling listings ever gives you.