4LAKids - NOT DEAD YET: Libraries still vital, Pew report finds + a elementary school librarian’s 2¢

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: NOT DEAD YET: Libraries still vital, Pew report finds + a elementary school librarian’s 2¢:

NOT DEAD YET: Libraries still vital, Pew report finds + a elementary school librarian’s 2¢

by smf

BY DAVID L. ULIN, LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK CRITIC | HTTP://LAT.MS/SBP0AQ

Organizing the bookshelves at the Los Angeles Public Library. (Arkasha Stevenson/Los Angeles Times / January 21, 2013)

January 22, 2013, 4:00 a.m.  ::  Perhaps the most groundbreaking aspect of “Library Services in the Digital Age,” the report released today by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project is how non-groundbreaking its findings are.

Based on “a survey of 2,252 Americans ages 16 and above” conducted between October 15 and November 10 of last year, the Pew reportassures us that, even in the digital age, libraries continue to serve a variety of functions, with nearly 60% of respondents having had some kind of interaction with a library in the last 12 months, and 91% saying that “public libraries are important to their communities.”

As for the way these numbers break down, the vast majority of patrons (73%) still visit libraries to browse the shelves and borrow print books.