In Russia school libraries are poor, they don't have enough books. The addition of new books to the libraries is made very seldom. It's difficult for a student to write a good essay using only books and other materials from his school library, so he has to go to the central public libraries, because only there he can find necessary information. But he spends a lot of time. Time - is money.
Students are short of time.
Five or six years ago school libraries were the storage of textbooks. Nowadays most of the textbooks are bought by the pupils and their parents. In a few years there will be no textbooks in the school libraries. And I hope school libraries will become real centers of self-education and culture with all necessary books and other information sources, including computers. The only problem is to have money and accordingly the opportunity to add new books to libraries regularly.