When the San Francisco Public Library unveiled its new Civic Center masterpiece building, the freshly minted Director made a statement to the effect of ".. a modern library is no place for old paper"

Librarians for decades in this area had been photographing newspapers and magazines (prone to rot on acidic paper stocks) but, books? rare, craft, good paper books? let's say that these statements were controversial

Foolishness takes many forms and I for one, point to the ridiculous fad of destroying quality print books at an Institution designed for their use. Digitize by all means ! do not destroy the originals.