Posted on 01/02/2008 9:30:22 AM PST by Fractal Trader
More than half of Americans visited a library in the past year with many of them drawn in by the computers rather than the books, according to a survey released on Sunday.
Of the 53 percent of U.S. adults who said they visited a library in 2007, the biggest users were young adults aged 18 to 30 in the tech-loving group known as Generation Y, the survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project said.
"These findings turn our thinking about libraries upside down," said Leigh Estabrook, a professor emerita at the University of Illinois and co-author of a report on the survey results.
"Internet use seems to create an information hunger and it is information-savvy young people who are most likely to visit libraries," she said.
Internet users were more than twice as likely to patronize libraries as non-Internet users, according to the survey.
More than two-thirds of library visitors in all age groups said they used computers while at the library.
Sixty-five percent of them looked up information on the Internet while 62 percent used computers to check into the library's resources.
Public libraries now offer virtual homework help, special gaming software programs, and some librarians even have created characters in the Second Life virtual world, Estabrook said. Libraries also remain a community hub or gathering place in many neighborhoods, she said.
The survey showed 62 percent of Generation Y respondents said they visited a public library in the past year, with a steady decline in usage according to age. Some 57 percent of adults aged 43 to 52 said they visited a library in 2007, followed by 46 percent of adults aged 53 to 61; 42 percent of adults aged 62 to 71; and just 32 percent of adults over 72.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I hate reading books off a computer screen. I much prefer a solid dead-tree volume in my hands.
...or any other topic you don't want traced back to you.
You’re not alone in that regard, but the information available on that screen is massive and growing exponentially.
It does strike me as a wierd acknowledgement that this age groups is getting kudos for going to the library in droves to ignore the volumes on the shelves.
The older groups have computers and don’t need to go to the library to access the internet. I guess they don’t deserve kudos though. LOL
Yeah, the anonymity of the experience brings out some real weirdos. The funnest time to visit the library, however, is when the churches and shelters bus in (and subsequently strand) filthy, homeless vagrants at the branch. You never know what you’re going to see, hear, or smell.
This is an internet cafe, not a library. There are hundreds of years of research materials that are not online on the click-click-click internet and it is foolish for libraries to discard their books for more computer equipment (and yes this is happening).
I think the only reason I visited a library last year was to apply for my passport.
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I’ve seen the younger generation online doing everything from Yahoo IM to playing online chess or pasting together an online avatar from cookie cutter hair styles and a variety of wardrobe options.
None of these meet the research purpose of a library. If someone wants to run a privately funded internet club house for the public, so be it. But there is zero public good being served by this trend.
And I saw my local library offering free printouts while the photocopiers are 25cents a page. All services are equal. Some are more equal than others.
I sure wish I had the net when I was in college. Geesh I would have had it easier if we had PCs. I had to type my papers on a typewriter and had to go to the library all the time.
College students have it much easier. BTW I also could have used a freaking calculator too!!!
I stopped going when I was repeatedly being “cited” for late returns when the real cause (and the library was aware, because it happened to hundreds of customers) was the library staff would check in only part of the stack before shelving the items. They would then get “checked in” the next time someone tried to sign them out (they’d have to check it in before they could check it out to the new customer).
BIG NEWS! People who are still students use the library more than older folks!
Next, men’s feet bigger than women’s.
I carry a library in my pocket with a Kindle.
Many colleges had the internet going back to at least the early 1980s. And I was already word processing by then (and glad to get away from manual typewriters and revisions).
The internet isn’t a great way of doing research. Yahoo and Google offer some contemporary news article search capabilities but they are not better than a periodical guide (there is no indexing by subject matter, just search terms that match regardless of context). And there isn’t a way to scope matches by date (e.g. just between Mar 2001 and August 2001). And then there are the periodicals that are not online. And the periodicals that require registration or pay (libraries SHOULD put their registration information into the fields and permit the customers to do the research that they are paying for).
Another downfall/perk to doing online research, text of an article is never locked. Pages can be deleted, false statements can be altered. A hardcopy periodical cannot be changed (it requires printing a subsequent retraction).
I used to go to the library (post college) to read all sorts of magazines that I didn’t want/need subscriptions to. I have a tendency to save the magazines I buy and storage can be a problem (it isn’t just the expense).
I just picked up a collection of Reagan’s Letters at the local library. Great book to get from the library, because you don’t have to read all of them — you can just pick the topics you are interested in to read. However, I went in because I was a little under the weather and wanted a nap in a comfy chair.
not to worry folks.. just a matter of time before books (which kill trees) will be banned, and all must read on the internet and thus save the trees..and our oxygen.
it’s coming. trust the nanny government.
That’s what I was thinking. The older folks have computers AND books.
I haven’t been inside a library since I started making enough money to be able to buy books.
Amen
I do a lot of my book shopping at the local thrift shop. Since I live in a major college town which is also in the Bible belt, there is usually a wide selection of the types of books I am interested in (non-fiction history, philosophy, theology, other humanities, plus science). The only time I go to the library (university, not rinky-dink public library) is to access journals or works that are so specialised that you won't find them anywhere outside a university research library, unless you want to pop $200 a piece to buy them.
Yeah, just look at Wikipedia. I hope that no one seriously uses that for any meaningful research.
I buy a ton and almost never go to the library. Since I read almost exclusively non-fiction I love to underline and write notes in the margins of books while I read them. Libraries don't like you writing in their books.
None of these meet the research purpose of a library. If someone wants to run a privately funded internet club house for the public, so be it. But there is zero public good being served by this trend.
I don't know, these computer uses seem about as trivial a subject as most of the books in the library: the romance novels, the teenage-quality sci-fi & fantasy, the celebrity biographies.
J-Stor is an excellent online resource, available at most public libraries, that archives hundreds--if not thousands--of journals on the web. Great resource.
There are lots and lots of great resources on the Internet, but most just aren't the free ones that you get at your house.
So 62% (Gen Y) = technology hungry, 57% (old people) = old people who can’t set their VCRs. Thank god for those tech-savvy Gen Y types, they’re the first generation to grow up with them com-pew-tor games and techsnolagies.
As you point out, that is both a pitfall and a benefit to online research. More, I think the latter -- but you have to know your sources. A scrupulous and ethical publication will include a box or a footnote pointing out major errors in fact that have been corrected; they don't point out typo fixes and minor revisions.
In a dead-tree publication, the correction is likely to appear an edition or two after the error -- and if you're doing research, you're not likely to look up the issue after the one that has the information you need. An electronic index or a repository like Nexis will probably note that a correction was later issued.
The biggest issue is that students -- and for that matter, a lot of Freepers -- need to be more skeptical about sources than ever before. It's much, much easier to create a professional-looking Web site then a professional-looking magazine that you can get onto a library shelf. What's in the library has already been vetted for you by the librarian. Not so on the 'Net.
Yeah, but if you ever NEED to, you’ll know how. Knowledge is power.
And by the way, Happy New Year to ya, X-woman. All the best to you and yours.
Sigh. Here I was thinking the Kindle was too pricey for my budget lol
Well, e-paper technology is still at infancy. Once they’re done perfcting colour versions, a year or two of mass manufacturing will bring these devices sub-200 dollars, or even less.
Good point on the books too.
And I you! Was your holiday merry?
I sure hope you are right.
Libraries are used as day care centers.
Certainly a major factor, but I think there's more to it than that. Older folks are more likely to have Internet-connected computers at home; they have personal libraries they've collected over the years; they have enough money that they'd rathet buy than borrow.
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