Back when we all started this grand Internet adventure, there was much speculation about how our public libraries rapidly would surrender their earthly shells and be born again -- bigger and better -- online. Well, while individual librarians certainly have been important contributors in the first decade of the Web, the lights still burn bright in all those brick and mortar library buildings.

The reason is no mystery. As it has worked out in so many other fields, most libraries discovered that the Internet has been an "AND," not an "OR." In other words, the Net has not replaced the library, but rather has enhanced it.

The Internet has built on library features already in place. Electronic extensions of a library's card catalog are a natural, for instance, as are online exhibits and locally produced suites of Web research tools for local library patrons.

At the same time, though, there has been an ongoing effort to establish a new library that exists solely in cyberspace. The Internet Public Library began in 1995 as a graduate seminar at the University of Michigan's School of Information and Library Studies. "The idea was twofold," say the site's operators in an online statement. "(1) To ask some interesting and important questions about the interconnections of libraries, librarians, and librarianship with a distributed networked environment, and (2) to learn a lot about these issues by actually designing and building something."

From that largely academic project has grown a very respectable digital research venue, where you can find extensive links to online reference material, newspapers, search tools, and online texts. To check it out, visit the site at http://www.ipl.org, where a simple introductory screen invites you to click to any of its collections (Reference, Exhibits, Especially for Librarians, Magazines and Serials, Newspapers, Online Texts, or Web Searching) or its facilities designed specifically for teens or youths.

Of particular interest to the working press will be its Reference section. A menu-driven secondary screen provides connections to departments such as Arts & Humanities, Business & Economics, Computers & Internet, Education, Entertainment & Leisure, Health & Medical Sciences, Law, Government & Political Science, Science & Technology, Social Studies, or Associations.

Each topic then is further broken down into sub-categories. Social Studies, for instance, branches into anthropology, archaeology, psychology, and so on. Also on each sub-category page is a linked list of the resources used in that section of the library with a description of each.

Other considerations for using the Internet Public Library in your writing and editing:

1. If you write about the site in your Internet column or in a feature story, you might want to mention the IPL's latest project, a youth division (http://www.ipl.org/youth/). This identifies and links to sites especially picked for users ages 4 to 11. These will be particularly useful as schools across the country reopen for another year. Resources here are not necessarily aimed specifically at children, but says the site's policy page, they "should be of interest and useful to these age groups or to their parents and teachers." Links are grouped under categories such as "Reference," "Our World," and "Math Whiz."

2. The site encourages journalists, writers and editors to use the site and report on it. There are some regulations about reproducing pages or images from the site. See the policy statement at http://www.ipl.org/about/repropol.html for details.

3. The site uses Web space provided by the University of Michigan and is funded by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and a corporate sponsorship from Bell & Howell Information and Learning.