• There are an estimated 122,611 libraries of all kinds in the United States today.
• Two out of three Americans own library cards and use them.
• About 80% of funding for the nation’s nearly 15, 000 public libraries comes from local taxes. About 20% comes from state funding and less than 1 percent from federal dollars.
• Libraries have more cardholders than Visa.
• Libraries have more locations than McDonalds.
• The first school for library science was founded by Melvil Dewey at Columbia University in 1887.
• Librarians may be categorized as a public, school, correctional, special, independent or academic librarian.
• Librarians hold a Master’s Degree in Library & Information Science.
• Benjamin Franklin formed the first public lending library in America.

For more facts and information, please visit The American Library Association website: http://www.ala.org