The pie charts compare the proportion of people visiting public British libraries in 1991 and 2000, categorizing visitors’ purposes.
Overall, the primary reason for people going to the library in both years was to borrow or return books. It is noticeable that borrowing or returning videos was a new reason arising in 2000, which had no figure before.
Regarding the decreasing categories, more than half of users who went to libraries were to borrow or return books, with 65% in 1991 but dropping by 10% in 2000. Similarly, there was a significant decrease in the percentage of study purposes in the given years, at 10% and 2%, respectively. Likewise, 15% of visitors read newspapers or magazines in public libraries in 1991, that of 2000 fell considerably to one-third, making up only 5% of the main activities in free libraries.
In terms of the reverse trend, the rate of people obtaining information in libraries was 20% in 1991, doubling the figure for 2001. No figure was given for borrowing or returning videos in 1991. However, the proportion of people who borrowed and returned videos rose rapidly to 18% in 2002, which ranked third among the main activities in libraries this year.