Circulation

Even excluding the two school libraries, the number of teen items available per person varied greatly from library to library. A study of a few state standards for public library collections revealed the average expected level for materials per capita to be in the 1.5 - 2.5 range for public libraries. ^6,7,8 Only 10 of the public libraries in the study met even 1.5 items per teen.

Most likely as a result of the insufficient number of materials available or a misconception of teen reading habits, every library but 2 had at least 1.8 checkouts per item on average. This number exceeded states' basic level for collection turnover.^9,10

In regards to circulation per customer, the National Center for Education Statistics (2006) lists average U.S. circulation per capita at 7.1.¹¹ Most of the libraries in the study did not come close to meeting this level of circulation, and 5 had very low circulation of less than 1 item per person. These libraries were all near the bottom of the list in the fundamental areas of square footage and square footage per person, and none of these had more than 4 dedicated computers.

Findings

• Minimum Items Per Capita: 0.13
• Maximum Items Per Capita: 50
• Median Items Per Capita: 1.03

• Minimum Circulation Per Item: 0.74
• Maximum Circulation Per Item: 10.91
• Median Circulation Per Item: 4.1

• Minimum Circulation Per Capita: 0.5
• Maximum Circulation Per Capita: 16.64
• Median Circulation Per Capita: 4.15