Library access in even colleges and universities are declining. According to Yale, there has been 64% decline in books getting checked out at its Bass Library. I assume, the figures are much lower in the public libraries and hence there are no new large libraries being created. Apart from easier access to the Internet, lack of incentive to allocate time for visiting a physical library and of course decreasing number of book readers itself might be to blame.

I guess there will be some who would wish there was an easier, affordable access to physical books like yourself. If you don't mind loosing the ambience of a physical library, have you tried online rental of books?