How many libraries are in the United States and what percentage of them are public libraries?
There are about 117,467 libraries in the US.
About 9,207 are public libraries
About 3,653 are academic libraries
About 93,861 are School Libraries (76,807 in Public Schools)
About 9,247 are "Special Libraries" (e.g., corporate, law, etc)
About 306 are Armed Forces libraried
About 1,193 are Government Libraries.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
On record, there are only about 117,467. But that doesn’t include every type of library. About 16,549 are considered public.
This totally depends how you define library. Some people have a den or study room that is called a library (it’s full of books). There are a few million of those, but I think the number may be decreasing as hobbies of the wealthy have changed. They aren’t public.
Then there are medical libraries in places like hospitals and libraries in law offices, and libraries in other offices… the exact number has not been counted. But of course, none of these are open to the public.
References :
I wanted to be a librarian once, so I’ve seen jobs advertised in all these places.
http://www.ala.org/library/fact1.html
November 30th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
There are about 117,467 libraries in the US.
About 9,207 are public libraries
About 3,653 are academic libraries
About 93,861 are School Libraries (76,807 in Public Schools)
About 9,247 are "Special Libraries" (e.g., corporate, law, etc)
About 306 are Armed Forces libraried
About 1,193 are Government Libraries.
References :
http://www.ala.org/ala/alalibrary/libraryfactsheet/alalibraryfactsheet1.cfm