Agreed, but I can't bring myself to write on books (not that you should write on library books anyway) which often led me to photocopying or scanning/printing large chunks of materials to scribble on to 'keep everything together (although, tbh, I usually used separate pieces of paper with colour coded and highlighted references
) . Similarly, when you had over 100 students needing access to a book the library only had 3 copies of it was chaos! The librarians had to make copies of the pertinent reading to lend out to prevent all-out war! What a waste of paper!
Having access to a digital format would definitely help in those situations so that a) when you DO get a book, you don't have someone else's comments inconsiderately scrawled all over it and b) you have instant access to the material you need and the option of flipping through musty old pages at your leisure! Would definitely have found it useful when I was at Uni, though I would have never, ever, ever, ever done away with the library!