Wanna run that by me one more time? "Ever since the creation of the Internet, the use of public libraries has been on the decline."

Here's An Awesome Idea For Turning The New York City Subway Into An E-Book Library. (Business Insider, 3/12/2013)

From this line graph, are we then to conclude that the Internet was created in 2002?

Wisconsin public libraries as early adopters?  According to the Wisconsin Public Library Service Data for 2002, 378 of the state's 387 public libraries provided Internet access to the public in 2002.

And in Wisconsin, a bar graph of "public library membership" looks like this.  (Figures available from 2004 on.)

Here's how circulation looks.

Here's how program attendance looks.

Since at least 1996 -- the earliest year for which Wisconsin Public Library Service Data is available at the DPI website, the state has had "libraries with Internet access".  (Column heading).  261 in 1996.  325 in 1997, the year in which the Middleton Public Library first offered public access Internet computers.  (1997 circulation:  448,737.  2012 circulation: 776,209.)

But a question remained unanswered.

When was the Internet created?

I'll do what most other people do in this situation -- Google it.

Webopedia:  "Brief timeline of the Internet".   When we talk about the Internet, we talk about the World Wide Web from the past four or five years. But, its history goes back a lot further; all the way back to the 1950s and 60s.  ("All the way back to the 1950s and 60s." OK, guys, you don't have to rub it in."

Computer History Museum.    This Internet Timeline begins in 1962, before the word ‘Internet’ is invented. The world’s 10,000 computers are primitive, although they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They have only a few thousand words of magnetic core memory, and programming them is far from easy.

Internet Society.   The first recorded description of the social interactions that could be enabled through networking was a series of memos written by J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in August 1962 discussing his "Galactic Network" concept. He envisioned a globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site. In spirit, the concept was very much like the Internet of today,

But most important, it started as the creation of a small band of dedicated researchers, and has grown to be a commercial success with billions of dollars of annual investment. 

Merriam-Webster

Library use has decreased since the creation of the Internet?

Tell that to Rock County.  (From a 2/10/2011 RGD blogpost)

Rock County/Janesville/Beloit:

Population and Circulation, 1960-2009

Rock County/Janesville/Beloit:

Circulation Per Capita, 1960-2009

(Sidebar:  Up until the early 1960s, some public libraries included school library circulation in their tallies.  I'm not sure if that was the case with Rock County libraries.  But I'm fairly sure -- high 90% range - it was the case in Racine.)

All things said, though, once you get past the jarring blanket statement that opens the video that kicks off this post, the idea presented by Miami Ad School is an intriguing and admirable one.