This troper's local university library consists of two vast, ten-story high buildings. However, each book he has ever found in the online library catalog was located on one of the first five floors. All stairways to the upper floors are permanently locked and the elevator won't go there without proper authorization... Just what the hell is up there?

Most likely artifact archives and the like; things too valuable to trust the typical university student with regular access to.

Like the Necronomicon? that'd be cool!

The ''Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho'', that's what.

Powell's Books qualifies.

As do the New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton, MA, and Haslam's in St. Petersburg, FL.

This troper's small Lutheran college has a fine, three-story library. Because the college was founded in 1830, some of these books are very old. When researching a paper, I looked up and pulled off the shelves a book that was printed more than a hundred years earlier.

Sadly, this troper's university is slowly averting this. Each center (Engineering, Natural/Exact Sciences, Social Sciences, Art, Education, Health Sciences) has its own library (sometimes as small as an average classroom, sometimes as large as 4 or 5 large classrooms together). The main library is now mostly used as a study place, for storing old documents/books/journals, for providing computer services to the blind, and for reading magazines/newspapers.

Averted for a good reason: the old library was built in the early 70s and is slowly sinking under its own weight, plus it doesn't have the structure to cope with the tens of thousands of students (no air-conditioning, only old bathrooms which spend most of their time being broken, etc...).

I simply love the big old libraries. The quiet, the smell of old paper...plus the long, silent hallways make for an exciting game of Laser Tag...

This Troper has had recurring dreams where I am in one of these, I like it