College libraries nowadays have reading rooms with lots of new popular fiction, design thinking rooms, mini videoconference rooms, study group rooms, huge comfy chairs with just 4 plugs for a student’s screens, etc…
They don’t really have lots of print classics, except in old editions for Scholars to want to compare them, since most classics can be found or borrowed online for free. (You can get tablets znd readers at most college libraries too.) However they have thousands upon thousands of scholarly books necessary for research papers and which can only be found there (which you can borrow from around the country through a system there’s called interlibrary loan.)
Always check out the library when you visit a university though.
Most college students spend almost their whole time on campus. If they go ‘into the city’, it’s probably once or twice a month max, even those who thought they’d be out every Friday and Saturday night.