Within hours of being laid off from a Target warehouse, Jacob Bogie headed to the Sun Prairie Public Library to begin looking for a new job.

"Anything," Bogie, 18, said Tuesday as he sat in the library's computer lab and scanned postings on the Internet. "I'm looking for something I can do."

The worse the economy gets, the busier libraries become in Wisconsin and across the nation.

Residents are turning to libraries for free job searches, Internet access, CD and DVD rentals and family entertainment ranging from story hours to play areas (toys included).

"Parents can't afford Disneyland," said Patricia Brady, a teacher who works with low-income students in Syracuse, N.Y., as she played with her two grandchildren in the Sun Prairie library. "This is their new Disneyland."

Increasing numbers of library visitors are checking out books and magazines, too, to avoid racking up bills for purchases and subscriptions.

"I think people are just downsizing," said Tracy Herold, director of the Sun Prairie library, which posted an 8 percent circulation gain in the first 11 months of 2008, the largest since the building opened in 1999.

"Libraries are always a great bargain," said Phyllis Davis, director of the South Central Library System, where circulation through the end of November was up 3 percent in the 41-community library network compared to the same period in 2007.

The circulation rise was even larger — an average of 5 percent — in the South Central network communities outside of Madison.

Madison's circulation figures are flat, chiefly because Sequoya, its busiest branch, was closed for seven weeks for an expansion. Excluding Sequoya, circulation figures in Madison are up 4 percent, with the largest increases at the Hawthorne, Meadowridge and South Madison branches.

"Use goes up in the neighborhoods that we think are probably affected first by the economy," said Tana Elias, Web resources coordinator for the Madison Public Library.

Elias noted use of the library system's Internet services has tripled since 2002, as visitors conduct research for school and college, update resumes and apply for jobs. Those tasks increasingly must be performed on the Internet, yet surveys show that one in four American adults lacks Internet access at home or work, she said.

In 2007, library circulation statewide increased a modest 0.4 percent over the prior year to 59.9 million — the eighth consecutive year of gains, according to data from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. The figures fluctuated during the 1990s, while the economy was booming. Statewide circulation figures for 2008 aren't yet available.

The American Library Association says that as the nation's economy continues to slide, increasing numbers of Americans are turning to libraries. According to survey data, 68 percent of Americans have a library card — a figure that's up 5 percentage points since 2006 and is the highest since the group started gathering the data in 1990.

Seventy-six percent of Americans visited their local public library in the past year, compared with 65.7 percent two years earlier, the group reported. Even larger increases were found in use of libraries' Web sites and online resources such as homework help, downloads of audio and video, and e-books.

The survey found that 39 percent of people visit the library to borrow books, while 12 percent borrow CDs, videos or software, 9 percent use reference materials and 8 percent tap into free Internet access.

Librarians in several Wisconsin communities noted the economy's effect on increases in use of their services.

In Janesvillle, where a General Motors plant recently closed, traffic is booming at a new job resource center, with visitors asking reference librarians to help them get information on going back to school to learn new skills, searching job postings and writing a resume, library director Bryan McCormick said.

David Weinhold, director of the Eastern Shores Library System, which includes 13 libraries and a bookmobile in the Sheboygan area, said the system's circulation figures are running 5 percent ahead of 2007's levels. Librarians are seeing significant increases, he said, in the numbers of materials being reserved, as growing ranks of residents find the library an attractive option during hard economic times.

Jessica MacPhail, director of the Racine Public Library, where circulation is up nearly 6 percent over 2007, said "the real story" is the recent surge in activity at the city's main library, where figures were up 21 percent in September and 10 percent in November compared to the same months in 2007.

"I know it's tied directly to the economy," said MacPhail, who since 1976 also has served as a librarian in Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio. "I've been around long enough to see it. Every time there's a dip in the economic cycle, people turn to us."

A sharp increase in the popularity of certain fiction books has forced librarians to change their methods for managing book collections. Once they become hooked by a certain author, library users may intensify their quest to read all of that author's works, so librarians now are holding onto early versions of authors' books more than they used to, because "you never know who's going to be the next John Grisham," MacPhail said.

Sun Prairie's computer lab was busy Tuesday morning, with people logged on at 10 of the library's 12 computers. Use is limited to 30 minutes per session and two hours per day.

Among the users were Ron Smith, his wife, Barbara Jackson-Smith, and their teenage son Colin Bradley, who conducted a job hunt and checked e-mail because they can't afford home Internet service. Also among the users were Tami Sovereign, who was looking online for an apartment, and Chris Reese, who entertained himself by watching Japanese anime, a form of animation.

"My motherboard got fried and I'm saving up for another one," Reese said.

He was seated beside Bogie, who intently read job listings online.

Bogie went away empty-handed and continues his search for work.