Would libraries exist?

Library Stuff has some interesting thoughts on whether libraries could be allowed to exist now if they didn’t already considering all of the current legal issues surrounding copyright and IP. I would doubt it, especially for public libraries. However, there are some types of publication that seemed to be aimed at communal use and that arguably need libraries to exist themselves, e.g. the Encyclopedia Britannica, scholarly journals. Whereas the effect on undergraduates might have been to lower the price of textbooks but raise the amount of money needed to actually be a student, no one researcher could afford the journals and varied resources to undertake detailed research effectively unless they share resources with someone else. As soon as you share books, you technically have a library. Perhaps these monolithic tomes would never have existed or flourished. In the case of scholarly journals, the need to more accurately target an audience might have led to a more healthy situation than now, where libraries are bound to purchase highly priced journals laden with research done by academics who have to publish in jounals in order to be funded.