This is about college students who aren't there for unstructured reading. They have specific research goals they want to accomplish, and that's why they get anxiety when confronted with giant unfamiliar collections.

That doesn't change much, IMO. Sure, finding the exact book you need in a collection of several million can seem daunting, but after you've learnt the system, it takes about three minutes (most of which is walking time). And learning the system isn't hard either, at least in my library, it's a matter of minutes.

So as far as I can see, there is no real excuse except "I'm not used to books because they're not the Internet".

>Sure, finding the exact book you need in a collection of several million can seem daunting

They don't know the exact book they need. That's where things go south. Any idiot can type the title into most library search systems now. The problem students have is when you ask something that requires them to figure out which books they should look in themselves.

According to the article, there is often confusion about which building you're supposed to be in. So it's not always that easy.