The first major survey on the impact of Internet use on public libraries is out (see News, p. 12), and there is good and bad news. The good news is that more than 75 percent of those who use the Internet also use public libraries, and they overwhelmingly agree that libraries provide more accurate information, better protect their privacy and confidentiality, and offer more helpful assistance from professionals.

On the other hand the Internet outscores public libraries when it comes to providing consumer product information, business information, and job and career information. Where there is little basis for comparison between the two, each dominates in expected areas: the Internet for round-the-clock availability and up-to-- the-minute information like news, weather, and sports, and the public library for cost-a no-brainer surely, since it is free and you don't need a machine to use it.

Barely evident in this survey is the reason most people give for using the library: to borrow a book to read. There is a disconnect in the profession regarding reading books and the library. Yet, if you do a free association with members of the public on the word library, the first response you get is the word book. Wayne Wiegand excoriates librarians and library and information science educators for valuing useful knowledge-information-over leisure-time activity-reading-in his recent Chronicle of Higher Education piece, "Librarians Ignore the Value of Stories" (10/27/00, p. B20). It is a theme he has hit on repeatedly, with no apparent impact on library service or graduate library and information science programs. "Members of the public understand that taking out books is the most important activity that happens in the library," says Wiegand, contrasting them with librarians and library educators. He points to the 1996 Benton Foundation study, which found that purchasing new books and other printed materials ranked highest on a national public opinion poll of how libraries should spend their money.

In the last two decades, as librarians have been overtaken first by implementing new technology for their own processes and then by providing new technology to the public, they have seemed increasingly reluctant to continue to be about books. That may be because it is easier to convince governments to fund sexy new technology over ongoing, traditional services. However, as Wiegand warns, by ignoring how they serve readers, librarians "miss evidence that they could use to convince [funders] that spending money on stories is important."

The Internet use survey does give a nod to readers in one category: as a place to bring children "for [the] fun of reading." And it is revealing that though books are not otherwise mentioned, nearly 76 percent of respondents who use both the net and the public library "use [the] library to borrow for personal enjoyment."

The survey might have probed the book-borrowing/net-buying behavior of library and Internet users. It reports that 54 percent of respondents use the net for shopping. How many use Amazon.com or the library to find information about books? Are library users going to the library remotely, accessing book information on the OPAC, and, where available, reserving books online? Reports from places like Westchester County, NY, which recently implemented a shared catalog among its 38 communities (lending even the latest best sellers), indicate that reserving books from remote computers at home in order to borrow them is a booming and growing library service.

As the survey notes, libraries and the Internet will coexist, as do radio and television, movie theaters and VCRs. At the same time, the survey reveals areas that libraries should cede to the Internet (the latest sports information), areas on which libraries can capitalize (providing more accurate information), and already popular services that libraries could market better (business information). By downplaying books, however, libraries neglect their greatest, most popular asset and pass up a golden opportunity to shape realistic future libraries and their services.