LIBRARIES in Worcestershire are reaching out to hundreds of thousands of readers through the internet, new figures reveal.

Actual visitors to the county libraries have risen only marginally in the last year - but there has been a boom in hits on their website.

Visitors to the county's libraries rose by almost 100,000 last year - up from 2,987,491 in 2002/3 to 3,075,943 in 2003/4.

Official statistics show there were 5,600 visits per 1,000 Worcestershire residents in the year to March 2004, compared to 5,472 visits per 1,000 residents in the previous year.

Inquiries for books and information also rose from 369,200 to 423,644.

But website inquiries more than doubled from 309,155 to 707,938 over the same period.

The figures, compiled by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, showed that across the UK visits to libraries increased for the first time in nearly a decade in 2002-03.

There were five million extra visits in what was the first upturn since the early 1990s.

Visitor numbers had been falling by several million a year, since 1995, and book borrowing across the UK has shrunk by 5.5 per cent.

Research published this week by Sheffield University found only a tiny proportion of libraries are open as long as shops.

Mark Wood, chairman of the Museum Libraries and Archives Council, said: "It's disappointing book borrowing is continuing to fall.

"Nonetheless, libraries need to stock the kinds of books people want to borrow, and they need to manage and procure that stock more efficiently.