divabot

Ah, but why is it rising? 2.5 years ago (in, IMO, one of the more foresighted and risky pieces of Governmental funding in recent times) libraries were given a small mountain of computers in order to provide internet access to all. This has been a roaring success, though a large proportion of the clientelle actually already have internet access at home, they simply don't see the need to pay for it when they can use the library bandwidth for free. How many of these people have (as a result of this initiative) become borrowers and users of the other services is far harder to quantify. What happens one these machines come to the end of their useful life (within a year), given that the funding that established the service was a one-off, is a major concern. If no funding comes forward, I'd postulate that you'll see a dip of similar magnitude to the rise observed in recent times.