WASHINGTON — More than half of Americans visited a library in the past year with many of them drawn in by the computers rather than the books, according to a survey released on Sunday. Of the 53 percent of U.S. adults who said they visited a library in 2007, the biggest users were young adults aged 18 to 30 in the tech-loving group known as Generation Y, the survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project said. ‘These findings turn our thinking about libraries upside down,’ said Leigh Estabrook, a professor emerita at the University of Illinois and co-author of a report on the survey results. ‘Internet use seems to create an information hunger and it is information-savvy young people who are most likely to visit libraries,’ she said. Internet users were more than twice as likely to patronize libraries as non-Internet users, according to the survey. More than two-thirds of library visitors in all age groups said they used computers while at the library. Sixty-five percent of them looked up information on the Internet while 62 percent used computers to check into the library’s resources. Public libraries now offer virtual homework […]