I get your point and posit thus: What about National Parks? Should they be sacred or should they too be butchered for 'floor space'? Large organized spaces relieve cognitive load, remove subconscious restrictions that we impose on ourselves and expand the mind. With no limits placed on the eye, the limits on the spirit dissolve as well. Nothing feels impossible. If this is not worth pursuing 'at all costs', if even this is subject to 'optimization', if unshackling of the intellect is 'not sacred': then let's begin with reclaiming land occupied by the Hagia Sophia and La Sagrada Familia.
No I don't think national parks should be sacred, but I don't think they or public libraries should "be butchered for 'floor space'". I think options should always be measured and considered.
Libraries aren't sacred to begin with. They're not like cows in India (if not in reality, then proverbially), popping up wherever they please, and nobody can do anything about it. Oh well, had this nice business here, but then someone opened a library, and since they are sacred, we had to move. That's not the situation.
Libraries taking up too much floor space doesn't mean much, since so does anything else. At the same time, they and all other things also take up too little floor space, since "taking up floor space" by itself doesn't really mean anything I can discern. Libraries are unique, and valuable; what other unique and valuable thing does their existence prevent?
To measure things you need at least two things. Maybe even three: an object to measure, a scale or another object to compare to, and some sort of heuristic as to what the result might mean (for you). It's pointless to say that it doesn't satisfy your standards of "usefulness" or what exactly your concern is, if you don't share those standards.
If we are measuring the cost of libraries is a drop in the bucket relative to national debt and GDP. The immeasurable benefit they provide to communities is so worth their tiny relative cost.
