CELEBRATE NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK - April 18-24, 2004

10 Surprising Facts About Libraries

1.The United States has more public libraries than McDonald’s.
2. U.S. libraries circulate more items every day than FedEx ships packages (5.4 vs. 5.3 million).
3. U.S. public library cardholders outnumber Amazon customers by almost 5 to 1.
4. Americans go to libraries more than twice as often as they go to the movies.
5. Americans spend more than three times as much on salty snacks as they do on public libraries.
6. Libraries hold 16 billion books worldwide.
7. Libraries record more than 1.1 billion visits each year, compared to 204 million sports tickets sold in a year.
8. Students visit school library media centers almost 1.5 billion times during the school year.
9. Americans spend seven times as much money on home video games as they do on school library materials for their children.
10. College and university librarians answer 97 million reference questions each year.

 

April 21, 2004 js
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