At age 62, I can remember when there were no digital resources in the library. My children are in college and I rarely see them with a book. Although they are able to access a great deal of information online (without a great deal of effort, I might add), their laptop computers don't allow them to see very much of it at one time. When I was a college student, I'd have at least 6 books open at once when I was writing a paper—like having 6 computer screens to look at. It's not the same when you have that many browser tabs to switch back and forth between (I know because I am now a professional writer). I also find that my children don't search as widely as we used to when researching a subject. They'll use the first couple of pages of internet search results and call it a day. When you're browsing in the stacks of a physical library, you come across things that wouldn't even make it onto page 10 of your search results. A book by a small publisher, some other student's dissertation, and so on. I also remember the pleasure of handling the volumes themselves. Paper from the Soviet Union had a particular smell (a good one). Early 20th century book bindings from Germany were extraordinarily crafted, like art objects. And when I wanted to free myself of distractions, I would decamp to the Chinese literature section, where I could not read anything at all. I don't miss having to type up my work from handwritten manuscripts, often cut up and taped back together as part of the editing process. But I do have wonderful memories of the books I learned from, all those pages turned by the students who had gone before me.