Highest public libraries by state

Public library outlets.

Library branches, bookmobiles and books-by-mail services, counted where each one stands. Outlets rather than systems: a system is an administrative body that might run twelve branches across a county, and the branch is the thing you can walk into. The Public Libraries Survey is a census rather than a directory, with state library agencies reporting every public library, so a county reading zero genuinely has no outlet rather than nobody having registered one. Counted, not rated: outlets per head would rank a single rural branch above a city system. Placed by coordinate rather than by the county name in the file, which still uses Connecticut's abolished counties and cannot see Virginia's independent cities. Institute of Museum and Library Services, FY2023.

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Source: IMLS Public Libraries Survey. · How this is built