Us 'oldies' seemed to manage quite well in the old days. Paper articles
are also searchable, but it requires a modicum of effort - something
that's apparently unacceptable these days. :)
Here in Vienna (i.e. at home) I have a small room. There is simply no more
space for any more papers or books. The lab in Paris is not yet completely
stacked with Michel's > 15,000 papers, but it will run out of space soon,
too.
Searchability is something I hardly ever need, but as an extreme case allows
you to do statistical research on how many papers use which term how often
in what sense. That's something you can get publications out of (Laurin &
Anderson 2004, Systematic Biology). Doing that by hand would require a lot
more than a modicum of effort and time. :-)