The clientele: Among adults, the youngest group are the heaviest users of public libraries, despite the ease with which they can find information on the Internet from their homes, according to a new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project

The clientele: Among adults, the youngest group are the heaviest users of public libraries, despite the ease with which they can find information on the Internet from their homes, according to a new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"It was truly surprising ... to find the youngest adults are the heaviest library users," said Lee Rainie, Pew's director. "The notion has taken hold in our culture that these wired-up, heavily gadgeted young folks are swimming in a sea of information and don't need to go to places where information is."

Kinds of questions: Library use is especially common for those who have questions related to education and job training, health conditions, government benefits and similar issues. Twenty-one percent of Americans ages 18 to 30 have turned to public libraries to answer such questions, compared with about 12 percent among the general adult population.

Hitting the books: People are going to libraries not only for the Internet computers there but also for the reference books, newspapers and magazines, the study found. "The age of books isn't yet over," Rainie said.

By age: The study found that library usage drops gradually as people age -- from 62 percent among Americans ages 18 to 30 to 32 percent among those 72 and older.

The sample: The telephone survey of 2,796 adults, including 1,702 Internet users, was conducted June 27 to Sept. 4 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

ASSOCIATED PRESS