CHARLESTON, W.Va. --- Check it out.

That's what users of public libraries are doing in record numbers these days. In an effort to stay entertained and informed without breaking the family budget, Americans across the U.S. are increasingly taking advantage of the best deal in town: everything -- books, CDs, even video game sessions -- is free.

"When the economy goes down, public library use goes up," said John Moorman, the director of the Williamsburg Regional Library in Virginia.

Though the trend bodes well in the long-term for libraries, whose funding depends on visits and circulation, it is placing strain on branches faced with tighter budgets as counties try to keep spending in check. A growing population of book borrowers also comes at a bad time for retailers such as Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million, whose sales and profits are falling as consumers' discretionary spending shrinks in the face of rising food and fuel prices.

Wall Street analysts say the book industry's troubles are mostly because of the lack of any hit titles for sale, not a surge in library usage.

The American Library Association says usage nationwide was 10 percent higher in the past year than during the 2001 economic downturn, when it tracked a similar spike in visits and circulation. Libraries recorded 1.3 billion visits and patrons checked out more than 2 billion items from April 2007 to April 2008.

At the downtown Charleston branch of the Kanawha County Public Library, Heidi Campbell's 2-year-old son Carter recently scampered from shelf to shelf before settling on a thick book with pictures of baseball players.

"This is something we can do once a week where we don't have to spend any money," said Ms. Campbell, whose family skipped its summer vacation and has cut back on visits to relatives in Tennessee, in large part because of soaring pump prices.

Book industry experts say the extra traffic witnessed by libraries does not pose a real threat to the business.

"Book publishers have a lot of challenges, and folks getting their books via the library doesn't even make the first page," said Michael Norris, a senior analyst for Simba Information, a Stamford, Conn.-based media research company. Mr. Norris said that when consumer spending in general rises again, book sales will grow, with patrons possibly buying titles they first borrowed from the library.