Virginia’s Chesterfield County Public Library

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has made available a preview of the Fiscal Year 2011 Public Libraries in the United States Survey. Now in its twenty-fourth year, the Public Library Survey gathers data from more than 98 percent of public libraries across the country.
In FY 2011, there were 8,956 public libraries in the United States, which served 299.9 million people or 95.3 percent of the U.S. population. Additional highlights are:
Visits and Program Attendance
There were 1.53 billion in-person visits to public libraries, the equivalent to more than 4.2 million visits each day (not including virtual visits).
Attendance at public library programs increased for the eighth year with 89 million people attending 3.81 million programs.

Books and Collections
Public libraries circulated 2.44 billion materials, or 8.1 items circulated per person.
While books continue to comprise the majority of the nation’s public library collection holdings, collections are shifting from print books to non-print and digital materials.

Public Access Computers
There were 261,413 public access Internet computers available at U.S. public libraries
There were 341.5 million usage sessions on public access Internet computers at public libraries.

Financial Health
More than $11.4 billion was invested in public libraries.
Public libraries spent $10.7 billion in operating expenditures.

A high-level overview of the FY 2011 data, supplementary tables, and information by state are available on IMLS website.