Yeah for sure. But I think also it's only relevant for people who spend so much of their time researching stuff that those delays become a bottleneck to something. Most people can go and do something else while waiting for a library book to be transferred - or while waiting for an opportunity to buy a book with information they want. Maybe Umberto Eco was so frequently held up by this that it made sense for him. Or maybe hoarding literature was indeed a status symbol for him and he just had a convincing story for why it was actually practical.