When we moved to the 'burbs of Los Angeles, I was pretty impressed with out local city and county libraries.  They had everything and yes, they also have the book loan program.  

The city's been redeveloping their libraries so they look like they belong in the neighborhoods they're sited.  Which is okay, but when I lived in Hollywood, our 3 libraries were closed at the same time for renovations.  Two reopened 3 years ago, but the number of books were severely reduced, though they did raise then number of foreign language books (Hebrew in these cases) available.  

Now I live in El Sereno (just outside downtown Los Angeles) and the local library has very few English books.  The library has very few books, period.  The books are now mostly Spanish, English, then Chinese.  It seems I've read probably 70% of the English language books available, the rest I'm not interested in reading.  There's also a (too big, IMO) video section and a lot of computers, so that's good.  The library does offer many programs in several languages and has  a screening series too.    

As for the book loan program, I've noticed income discrepancies that are denied.  In my old neighborhood (upper-income), if I wanted a book I rarely had to wait more 3 days for it to be available.  In my new (lower-income) area, I've had to wait weeks for books to get to my area.