All students take books from the library. / All of the students take the books from the library

Question

Could you explain which sentence is right if we say about all students/books at the (particular) university? In my grammar book I have the first example, but I think there is necessary to put "the". The first "the" we need to put because we speak about students in that university, not about all students in the world. The second "the" we need to put because we speak about books that we could find in that university, not about all books in the world. Am I right? Does the second version sound more idiomatic?

All students take books from the library.

All of the students take the books from the library.

Answer 1

Whether any reference made in a sentence makes pragmatic sense depends on the context in which it is read by a reader.

For example, the first sentence by itself, without any context, can only be interpreted as a statement of a universal phenomenon, which is that students (in the world) take books from libraries that they have access to. And the second sentence won't even practically function as a stand-alone, with no contextual knowledge provided.

When readers, however, understand that you are referring to a particular library at a particular university, then the first sentence will suffice because it is already evident from the context which library and students you are referring to. Putting thes before "students" and "books" will be unnecessary.

The second sentence will be appropriate for when you are referring to specific individuals/groups of individual students at the university and specific books/sets of books in the library, both for which contextual knowledge will already have been provided.

Answer 2

...all students/books at the (particular) university?... Am I right?...

Yes, you're right.

All students= students in general, all students in the world.

All of the students= a particular group of students

We can leave out of' after all

all the students= a particular group of students