During covid, when everyone was told to stay at home and not do anything, the library offered library books.

And what they actually did is violate the requirement to have a physical copy of the book they were lending.

As I understand it, they did not offer anything new that wasn't available to loan prior.

I could be wrong. But if I'm not, I see no reason to lambast IA.

It's not lambasting to communicate what happened. IA got a C&D, refused to comply, and got sued for copyright infringement. The courts sided with the publishers when IA tried to claim it was fair use (technologists seem to have a pattern of stretching the definition of fair use). They've put their entire project at risk because they've repeatedly ignored the law here. That's just what happened.