[tivert]

> So, a huge collection of books available for free won't help library patrons, and the main reason why because I can't also use it to view Chekhov's handwritten notebooks or the Leningrad codex? Ok.

You're moving the goalposts. I'm sure the UK already as quite a few everyday lending libraries that would fill that need while the British Library is offline. Library Genesis could perhaps fill in for one of those if it was shut down because of hacking, but few people would care.