Anyone can now make and distribute video world-wide at zero incremental cost. That’s a mind-boggling video communication revolution. Google’s recent heroic effort to count the number of books that have been published around the world shows how scarce video has been. Google estimates tomes — symbolically distinguished, printed and bound works — to number 146 … Continue reading the video revolution
Like most persons around the world and throughout history, public library users like audiovisual materials. Videos currently accounts for about 6% of U.S. public library items and 30% of U.S. public library item circulation. From 1985 to 2004, library video circulation grew much faster than commercial video circulation. Library video borrowing currently equals about 20% … Continue reading video borrowing from U.S. public libraries
More than half the libraries existing in the U.S. in 1919 had received construction grant money from Andrew Carnegie. Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-born U.S. industrialist who acquired massive wealth. He believed in self-improvement through hard work, and he considered public libraries to serve this purpose by making knowledge available to everyone. Hence Carnegie set … Continue reading Carnegie library stimulus program
Washington DC had higher receipts per employee working in rental (circulating) libraries than did any state, according to statistics of rental libraries included in the Census of Business, 1935. The Census greatly under-reported rental libraries, but the data may have been roughly representative of rental libraries’ businesses. The data thus suggest that DC had relatively … Continue reading book rental libraries in Washington, DC
Professor Williams, University of South Carolina, School of Library and Information Science, has compiled an excellent bibliographic guide to national-scope U.S. library statistics from 1829 to 1999. This thorough work documents an amazing amount of data available about libraries, which were and remain a key part of public information infrastructure. I used an early draft … Continue reading national-scope statistical sources on U.S. libraries