By Grace Holloway

According to the circulation statistics of Moffett Library, fewer students, faculty and area card users utilized its facility in 2011 than in 2010.

Last year, 9,878 fewer people walked into the library.

Fewer people means fewer books, audio equipment, projectors and like items were checked out and renewed. A total of 1,731 fewer items were checked out and 479 fewer items were renewed.

Jason Brezina, circulation department manager, said more students are going to the library just to study or to use the computers to surf the web.

“You don’t even have to physically be here to use this library,” said Brezina.

Through the MSU website’s databases, anyone can access Net Library, which has 50,000 eBooks, and eLibrary, where you can search magazine and newspaper articles as well as books.

Both programs are integrated with the MSU’s library catalog. Net Library allows the user to have a free account to read eBooks.

Cindy Seegers, psychology major, said that she has never checked out a book from the MSU library because everything she needs to look up is online.

“I would rather be in the comfort of my own home doing research on my laptop than be in the library doing it,” Seegers said.

However, she has been there at least 30 times this semester to study for exams.

“It’s the only place I can study for five hours straight,” she said.

When she is studying, she brings her own laptop and books, and only uses the library’s computers when she needs to print something.

Josh Hernandez, biology major, is like Seegers because he goes to the library at least twice a week only tostudy.

“No one goes to the library to get books because it’s all on the net,” Hernandez said.

Brezina said old magazines and journals are being thrown out because nobody uses them anymore.

“Magazines used to be bound into books, now they’re made into microfiche slides,” Brezina said.

A microfiche is a four by five inch piece of photographic film, containing printed information in a size too small to be seen by the naked eye.

Statistics show that January through March of last year compared to the same months of this year, 204 fewer people have gone to the library.

This decreasing statistic seems to be trending, but that doesn’t have Brezina worried. He said that the budget for the library stays the same no matter how many people go.

“We’re always going to need a library,” Breniza explained. “We’ll always need someone to catalog the information and also archive it. One has to be able to control that information.”