DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37119
title: Public Libraries in the United States Survey, 2015
title: Archival Version

description: The Public Libraries Survey (PLS) provides statistics on the status of public libraries in the United States. It is a voluntary survey conducted annually by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 survey is the 27th in the series.


The data files include all public libraries identified by state library administrative agencies in the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the outlying areas of American Samoa and Guam. The reporting unit for the survey is the administrative entity, defined as the agency that is legally established under local or state law to provide public library service to the population of a local jurisdiction. In this survey, the term public library means an administrative entity.


For Fiscal Year 2015, IMLS collected the following information via a web-based survey for the PLS:

<strong>Library Data</strong> - Data on each public library, such as its name and address, population of legal service area, service outlets, collections, full-time-equivalent staff, and operating revenue and expenditures. State characteristics data, including the reporting period starting and ending dates, the state total population estimate, and the total unduplicated population of legal service areas for the state. These data are contained in dataset 1 and include 9,251 records; 9,231 were public libraries and 20 were administrative entities that closed or temporarily closed for FY 2015.

<strong>State Data</strong> - Each state library agency reported these data on the "State Characteristics" record because they are not library-level data. These data are in dataset 2 and include 53 records, one for each state and outlying area.

<strong>Outlet Data</strong> - Data on each public library service outlet, such as its name and address, type, county location, metropolitan status, square footage, public service hours per year, and number of weeks a library outlet is open. These data are in dataset 3 and include 17,408 total records. The file includes identifying information and a few basic data items for public library service outlets (central, branch, bookmobile, and books-by-mail-only outlets). The file includes 17,328 outlets in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, 8 outlets in the outlying areas, and 72 records for outlets that were reported as closed or were temporarily closed for FY 2015.




This data collection is useful to researchers, journalists, the public, and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels. These data are used by federal, state and local officials, professional associations, and local practitioners for planning, evaluation, and policy making.
description: IMLS research for PLS is designed to provide consistent, reliable, complete, and accurate indicators of the status and trends in public library services; and to report timely, useful, and high-quality data to Congress, the states, other policymakers, practitioners, data users, and the general public.
description: The PLS is designed as a universe survey of the 9,231 public libraries located in the United States and its outlying areas. The data are collected via a web-based survey under the mandate of the Museum and Library Services Act of 2010 (PL 111-340) as stated in SEC. 210. The U.S. Census Bureau is the data collection agent for IMLS.
description: No weights are present and the data are not weighted.
description: Response Rates: A total of 9,014 of the 9,231 public libraries in the survey frame responded to the FY 2015 PLS for a unit response rate of 97.6 percent.
description: The survey frame consists of 9,231 public libraries - 9,229 public libraries in the 50 states and the District of Columbia and 2 public libraries in the outlying areas of American Samoa and Guam) - as identified by state library administrative agencies. The survey frame includes 161 public libraries that do not meet all the criteria in the FSCS Public Library Definition (see Appendix F, item 203 of the Administrative Entity definitions for the criteria in the User Guide). These libraries are included because they qualify as public libraries under state law. Military libraries that provide public library service and libraries that serve residents of institutions are not included. The FY 2015 public-use data file also includes 20 records for public libraries that were reported as closed or temporarily closed in FY 2015, but these are generally not considered to be part of the survey frame.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Public Library Data File, FY 2015
DS2: Public Library State Summary / State Characteristics Data File, FY 2015
DS3: Public Library Outlet Data File, FY 2015
description: Public libraries in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the outlying areas
of American Samoa and Guam. Smallest Geographic Unit: Census block
description: web-based surveyThe data provided here were acquired from IMLS and include only the public-use versions of the data. IMLS has suppressed some data in these files, in order to protect privacy and to prevent disclosure of individual information. If users require access to this suppressed information, they should contact IMLS at LibraryStats@imls.gov about procedures for obtaining access to the restricted-use data files.Users are encouraged to review all documentation prior to using these data. For information on changes made to these data by ICPSR, please see the ICPSR Processing Notes in the ICPSR Variable Description and Frequencies documents.Numeric fields may contain negative numbers, such as "-1". "-2", or "-3". These indicate that the value is "null" (or "blank"), and may mean that the data are missing, not applicable, or suppressed to protect confidentiality. See the Record Layouts in the User Guide for more information. Check for fields that contain negative numbers before using averages, sums, or other calculations or aggregations of data.In this survey, the term public library means an administrative entity. The administrative entity may have a single outlet or multiple outlets (single- and multiple-outlet libraries that do not have a central outlet are listed in Appendix E of the User Guide). The data for a multiple-outlet library are combined.For information on the collection data collection dates, see "Table 2. Reporting Periods of Public Libraries: FY 2015" in the User Guide.State data comparisons should be made with caution because of differences in reporting periods (see Table 2 in the User Guide) and adherence to survey definitions. The definitions used by some states in collecting data from their public libraries may not be consistent with the PLS definitions.Since the District of Columbia is not a state, special care should be used in comparing data for a city to state data. Caution should also be used in comparing Hawaii's data to other states as all public library data are reported under one entity, the Hawaii State Public Library System.The data include imputations, at the unit and item levels, for non-responding libraries. For a discussion of the imputation methodology, see the Imputation section of the User Guide.