[Mediterraneo10]

"Part of the pleasure is simply going there and shuffling through books."

The new "libraries of the future" that are being built tend to hide most of the books in closed stacks. You kind of already have to know what you are looking for, so that you can put in a request to have the book brought from the stacks to the reservation shelf.

Even when libraries these days are intentionally being built as a space for the community to meet (like Helsinki’s Oodi library), books are a pretty small part of their overall mission.