What makes an academic library?

I just read an interesting article on the American Libraries website about the future of academic libraries. The article addresses the need for space in academic libraries and the resistance from faculty, alumni and students to any plans for making space by moving unused books offsite.

The one certainty is that the continued over-my-dead-body insistence that no
books be removed from campus libraries is an unsustainable position that, sooner
or later, must give way to new ways of managing and using academic
libraries.

Is an academic library without books still a place of thought and learning, or is it just another internet cafe?

Read The Myth of Browsing by Donald A. Barclay to find out.