Comment Salient Points (Score 1) 485
I would point out:
No one wants to throw out the original books. They are historical artifacts with value beyond the mere text.
E-archives such as the aforementioned Guttenberg Project, the English Server at Carnegie Mellon, and The Online Books Page at UPENN are tremendously useful and popular. These university libraries still get lots of paperphiles, who aren't even students.
If you don't want to read on a screen, buy a printer.
As for digital media storage, any hard drives, CDs, etc. that the Library used would decay in a few decades - unless they go for some real high end stuff, like some experiemental optical drive. Either way, the cost and upkeep would, presumably, be a fairly large multiple of the library's current budget. I would love to have a digital library of congress, but the costs would be huge. How would we pay for it? Fees would undermine the whole notion of free public libraries, and be fodder for the argument of a "digital divide". Banner ads at the Library of Congress website would probably be a poor solution. And I don't think tax increases would be well received. Nonetheless, our librarian said none of these things, which makes me wonder if he needs to get out of that musty labyrinth of shelves and breath a little fresh air. He sounds downright crotchty.
