[speedplane]

> Undergraduates rarely needed to access the physical books

Huge libraries of books may possibly be obsolete at large universities, especially for undergrads. But when I went to school, I found immense value in my schools access to periodicals. I read them voraciously and learned how to quickly read (and later write) technical articles. It quickly became clear they were instrumental with staying up to date with the state of the art.

It’s a pity that most of these academic periodicals are out of reach for everyone outside academia, they are the closest we have to true source material.