There is a misconception that the Internet and ebooks will replace libraries. This is not likely for many reasons. One of the most critical reasons is that the Internet is a maze, a glut of untended sites left to rot by forgetful owners; thrown together by elementary, middle school, high school and university students to fulfill course requirements; by barely educated people who heard some stuff about something and have some ideas about something to share; by people with biases and agendas; by people who are mean and like to play gotcha; by prowling wolves in sheep's clothing; and by some people who actually know what they are doing.
We cannot turn our students loose in such a world without guides, and librarians are the teachers most qualified to be those guides. Even if a day comes when we gather most of our information from the Internet, there will be a ton of information that will still not be digitized because it is costly to digitize it, it takes time to digitize it, and it is housed all over the world, and it is not always easy to get rights to digitize it. Besides, many people -- yes, even our teenagers-- tell us they stll want to curl up in their beds with a print book to read for fun.
More importantly, investing a lot of money into library resources and not having someone there who knows how to best utilize those resources and get them into the right hands at the right time is penny wise but pound foolish. The data proves it time and again: strong libraries build strong students.
Here is a quick visual with some data about how libraries impact learning.
Causality: School Libraries and Student Success (CLASS) from the American Association for School Librarians National Research Forum, December 2014
American Association for School Librarians Urban Schools Task Force Survey Report 2011