Existential fear has descended upon the venerable stacks of the Silicon Valley College library. Darkness at Noon is among the first to feel it, and not just because of the rat-tat-tatting of jackhammers. Something ominous is also taking place inside: library personnel are yanking cartloads of books off the shelves, denuding them of their spines and covers, feeding them page-by-page into scanners, reassembling them, and as a final outrage packing them into metal bins.