As someone who used to work in a university library, let me tell you about space annexation! Those shelves and carrels might as well have been the Amazon Rainforest for how greedily the higher-ups stared at them.

With digitization, it makes sense for the library to lose space, so I get it. And now with students looking to "quality of life" as well as reputation, every school is fighting a branding war which means those green mermaids will be as ubiquitous as pajama bottoms and flip flops.