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Number of Libraries in the United States as of August 2018
A Fifth Update to ALA Library Fact Sheet 1
See the Fourth Update, the Third Update, the Second Update, and the First Update.
There are an estimated 125,488 libraries of all kinds in the United States today!
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No single annual survey provides statistics on all types of libraries. Figures for public, academic, and school libraries come from surveys by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), while the figures for the other libraries come from Information Today’s American Library Directory.
In a press release dated April 23, 2018, IMLS Releases Annual Data and Survey Results of American Public Libraries, IMLS announced the Fiscal Year 2016 data was available, including the Supplementary Tables PDF. Still to come is the actual report, presumably to be named “Public Libraries in the United States Survey: Fiscal Year 2016”. The Supplementary Tables (PDF) of the Public Libraries Survey: Fiscal Year 2016 (April 2018) reported a slightly lower count of public libraries overall, from 9,068 administrative entities in the Fiscal Year 2015 (PDF) statistics in the October 2017 update to 9,057.
