Many of us assume everything is mostly online and so it's our first port of call for any research or knowledge gathering. But I think many people underestimate how much information in books isn't online and just how much useful information is still tied up in those books. Your example of Urbana public library, for example, shows how dangerous it is to wrongly assume that non-fiction books past a certain age must be out-of-date and therefore useless.

Here's a repeat of an anecdote that I've posted before in similar threads: a few years ago I was researching the Swiss architect Le Corbusier. I wanted to find out about his famous housing complex called Unité d'habitation (Housing Unit) first built in Marseille in France. I started my research online looking for floorplans and commentary or critques. I found very little (there is a lot more available online today, but not when I was looking).

Consider that Le Corbusier is one of the most famous architects of the 20th century so this was a surprise. Eventually, I did find what I was looking for by...(yes, you guessed it) going to the library and visiting an architecture exhibition. I ended up scanning some floorplans from a book (and putting them online). From the exhibition, I came across a video of Corbusier talking about the Unité d'habitation - a great find, and I ended up transcribing sections of that interview. None of this information was available on the web.

It's very easy to fall into the belief that the information you find online is likely to be the best or most recent information available on that topic - so the thought of further offline research at a library never crosses your mind. But there is a huge amount of information and knowledge found in books that has never made it online. If you never go to the library, you simply won't realise what you're missing.