Durangoans and residents of Ignacio seem to like their public libraries better than most people across the United States.

While a Pew Research Center survey released this week at the Public Library Association’s biennial conference in Denver shows that fewer Americans are visiting libraries, visits to the Durango Public Library have remained steady and visits to the Ignacio Community Library are rising.

Pew asked American adults whether they visited a library in the past year. In 2012, 53 percent said yes. That has dropped steadily to 44 percent last year.

Visitation numbers at the Durango Library were not immediately available, but for years, more than 30,000 of the 55,000 people in the county have had an active library card, Director Sandy Irwin said. She noted a dip as the economy recovered from the recession of 2008, but otherwise, visitation has remained fairly flat.

But the reasons people visit the library are shifting. For example, fewer people use library computers, but wireless Internet usage is up, she said.

It also remains a popular place to meet and collaborate on projects, Irwin said.

“There will be days when you can’t even find a place to sit,” she said.

The library is adapting to changing tastes. Two weeks ago, the library began providing a Minecraft server so that gamers can build structures out of raw materials together, Irwin said.

While attending the conference in Denver, she said she was inspired to explore the idea of checking out nontraditional items such as mobile hotspots that provide wireless Internet or Polaroid Tabletop Studios, which provide a professional space to take pictures of small items.

At the Ignacio Community Library, visitation has increased each year since 2013, Director Leslee Shell said. Currently, about 6,400 people a month use the library.

“We are bucking the trend here,” Shell said.

She attributes the growth to a variety of programming, including early literacy activities, a video class, gardening workshops and an oral history program called Voices of Ignacio. It also has a Maker Space where Lego and rocketry classes are held.

The rural setting of libraries in the county may contribute to their higher visitation numbers, the directors said, because people rely on libraries in rural areas to keep them connected. It is especially key for those without high-speed Internet access.

“They are dependent on their library for their access to the world,” Irwin said.

The national decline in library visitation is a concern, but numbers alone do not measure a library’s importance to a community, said Vailey Oehlke, president of the Public Library Association, which works to strengthen libraries and staff. She pointed to efforts by libraries across the country to help patrons earn high school diplomas or improve career skills.

“Public libraries are critical players in ensuring that our communities are healthy and successful and ensuring that the people living in the communities are living up to their potential,” Oehlke said in an interview with the Associated Press.

Libraries across the country are increasing offerings, in part to try to remain relevant as the municipal budgets on which they rely shrink.

But Pew found that many adults don’t know they can borrow e-books, study for high school equivalency degrees and take part in other programs at their libraries. Pew, citing the Information Policy and Access Center at the University of Maryland, said 90 percent of public libraries have e-book lending programs. A third of adults, however, don’t know that.

Libraries can’t devote much of their budgets to public relations, but they know they need to do more to promote their programs and offerings, said Denver City Librarian Michelle Jeske. After years of keeping the marketing budget at $25,000, the Denver library is spending $75,000 this year. Part of that will be spent on a survey to get more information about how the community views library services.

Researchers interviewed a nationally representative sample of 2,752 adults by landline and cellphone. The margin of error was 2.1 percentage points. The AP contributed to this report