Good times for libraries

Today's Future Tense (RealAudio - MP3 - iTunes) featured an interview with professor Leigh Estabrook from the University of Illinois. She's co-author of a Pew Internet report on how libraries are adapting and being used in the digital age.

Among the findings:

-More than half of Americans visited a library in the past year, and computers were at least as big of a draw as books

-Of the 53 percent of U.S. adults who visited a library in 2007, the biggest users were young adults aged 18 to 30 - the group known as Generation Y

-Internet users were more than twice as likely to patronize libraries as non-Internet users

-More than two-thirds of library visitors in all age groups said they used computers while at the library

I love libraries. As a grade school kid, I'd bike to the Watertown, South Dakota public library frequently and check out books on baseball and World War II. I got kicked out of that place for being too rowdy more than a few times.

As a high school debater, I spent hours at the South Dakota State University library every night researching annual debate topics like "Resolved: That the federal government should initiate and enforce safety guarantees on consumer goods."

As a young parent in the Twin Cities I often took my kids to libraries for story hours and to encourage reading. One of my chief regrets about moving away from Minnesota was leaving my fabulous new library in Roseville, which features a Dunn Brothers inside. Best. Coffee shop. Ever.

But now, after living for years with an inadequate library in my new home town of Alameda, California, we have a wonderful new library ourselves.

The Alameda Free Library