Fairfax County isn't tossing all the classics. They're simply removing copies from every branch -- you'll still be able to get Aristotle's Poetics but it might be at another branch than "yours" and you could either drive over or have it sent. There's a difference between being inconvenienced and being denied entirely.

Not that I'm defending the decisions of another library, but the story on this which I read in the Washington Post wasn't all that clear.

This is NOT a new idea. Cuyahoga County PL in Ohio has for many years had "specialized branches" -- you get the basics, and "your" branch then specializes in music or history or whatever.