Call me a purist. Call me a traditionalist. My memories of the library will always be of a place dedicated to housing knowledge and providing a means to research. Research does not have to be for a grade or for a degree. It does not even have to be for school.
Research can be as simple as wanting to know more about something.
Libraries allow you to take materials with you. To think that libraries could become nothing more than rows and rows of computer terminals linking on-line versions of texts, forcing patrons to stare for hours on end at monitors is frightening to say the least. I have always enjoyed the portability of a book and that it needs no current and is not dependant on an operating system. I don't know if it would even be safe to fall asleep on the couch with a laptop running on my chest. A book however would be harmless.