642 Public Libraries, 61 million patron visits, you do the math!
According to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics:
- 66 percent of all households in the U.S. visited a public library in the last year. Among households with children under 18 years of age, 61 percent visited the library.
According to the Illinois State Library:
- More than 61 million patron visits are made to Illinois public libraries annually.
- Illinoisans borrow more than 88.7 million items per year from their public libraries—books and magazines,but also compact discs, video and audio tapes, digital video discs, computer software, and more.
- Illinois reference librarians answer 16 million questions each year; 30 percent of the inquiries are from children.
- Residents in rural areas check out almost twice as many books per person as those living in urban areas.
- In 2002, per capita funding for Illinois public libraries was $54.34. Local funding accounted for 85 percent of the total.
from Illinois Libraries Today, Illinois Library Association, August 2004.
Photo Caption: LaSalle Public Library, LaSalle, Illinois
Related Resources