Quote:
Originally Posted by speakingtohe
Interesting.
According to many articles I have read in MR threads, the average North American reads 2 books a year, and probably not from the library, we people who use the library regularly are pretty subsidized, not that I am complaining  |
True about the subsidy, although more people use the library than I would have thought.
Here's a document from my library's 2012 budget proposal:
http://www.imcpl.org/files/8713/3242...etProposal.pdf
That data used in the proposal is from 2010, but if you dig down, it's pretty interesting. The total population served is 875,000. Of these, 550,000 have a library card, and 180,000 used the card in the previous 12 months.
There were other interesting tidbits - 5 million patron visits annually; 65% of the items checked out are books; 0.5% of items checked out were "downloadables" (remember the data are from 2010); the meeting rooms were used for 4,100 meetings of non-profit groups (and 91 for-profit groups); library programs for juveniles attracted 200,000 attendees.
Total budget is $48 million.