Comment by rahimnathwani

"If you can request a book and have it arrive in a few days"

That means two trips to the library. And it means you can't use the book that same day. This is fine for fiction, but not if you want a book because you're going to study it to aid your learning or your work.

If it's fine for a book to arrive in a few days why have a library with publicly browsable shelves at all?