This long-running series has now been discontinued, due to lack of funding.
It was the most comprehensive set of statistics about libraries and information services in the UK. It gave the most recent figures available for libraries in all sectors, presenting the national picture appropriately broken down to give a useful overview of the then current position, and in many cases how that position was arrived at.
Coverage in the 2006 edition includes:
- Public libraries - trends for up to ten years, on key aspects of expenditure, stock, services, use and users, by local authority sector.
- Academic libraries - trends for up to ten years on a range of features including expenditure, users, provision of stock and facilities, drawn primarily from HE institutions’ returns to SCONUL and HCLRG.
- Other libraries - the most recent information from the three national
libraries and libraries in Government departments is given, with some limited trend information
where available.
- Statistics of general interest - including indexes of general, book and
periodical price inflation and detailed information on Public Lending Right. A comprehensive
bibliography gives details of the various sources used, and other relevant volumes and
web sites.
Download full
report (pdf 1MB)
Download individual parts of the report below:
List of
tables, figures and acknowledgements (pdf 96KB)
Section
1 Introduction, including summary of key findings (pdf 108KB)
Section
2 Public library statistics (pdf 508KB)
Section
3 Academic library statistics (pdf 252KB)
Section
4 Other libraries (pdf 152KB)
Section
5 Miscellaneous statistics (pdf 172KB)
Bibliography
and associated publications (pdf 112KB)
Appendices: (pdf 92KB)
A: Authorities missing from CIPFA Actuals
B: Counting public
library issues - guidance notes
C: Local government reorganisation
