Shamika Miller works on a computer at the Stockton-San Joaquin County Library in Tracy, Calif., a town that has been ravaged by mortgage foreclosures.
The financial crisis has caused a lot of withdrawals at the public library.
A few years ago, public libraries were being written off as goners. The Internet had made them irrelevant, the argument went. But libraries across the country are reporting jumps in attendance of as much as 65% over the past year, as newly unemployed people flock to branches to fill out résumés and scan ads for job listings.
Of course, the Internet itself is no replacement for actual research, not entirely. But I myself criticized the old model, and doing so got me in a lot of trouble In Library school.
Other recession-weary patrons are turning to libraries for cheap entertainment -- killing time with the free computers, video rentals and, of course, books.
Books, too, of course.
An average of 230 people a day line up to use the 27 computers at Randolph County Public Library in Asheboro, N.C.
A patron browses the science fiction and fantasy section of the Tracy library, which has seen an increase in the number of people using their materials.
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