Break out the books (and DVDs, CDs, and host of other resources available at your local public library) because it’s National Library Week! First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country.<\/p>\n

Let’s celebrate with some fun facts about public libraries.<\/p>\n

* Are there more big books or Big Macs?<\/strong> With 16,000 public libraries, there are more public libraries than McDonald\u2019s in the U.S. When you count all kinds of libraries, including public, school, academic and special, there are more than 123,000 libraries in our country.<\/p>\n

* Get carded:<\/strong> 58 percent of Americans have a library card. Do you have yours?<\/p>\n

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\n* The average user takes out more than seven books a year<\/strong> from their public library and all together, Americans check out more than 2 billion items each year.<\/p>\n

* The Library of Congress<\/a> is the largest library in the world<\/strong>, with more than 160 million items on approximately 838 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 37 million books and other print materials, 3.5 million recordings, 14 million photographs, 5.5 million maps, 7.1 million pieces of sheet music and 69 million manuscripts.<\/p>\n

* From big to small:<\/strong> Andrew Carnegie gave away $60 million to fund a system of 1,689 public libraries across the country. Pickerington, Ohio, where I grew up, was the smallest town to receive a Carnegie library. It was was built in 1916 with a $10,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie. It is where I went to story time as a child and learned to love the wonder of libraries. It\u00a0 served as the town library until 1993 and now serves as the home of the town’s historical society and is on the National Register of Historic Places and.<\/p>\n

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* Libraries loan a lot more than books:<\/strong> Many people know that DVDs and CDs are available, but did you know that in Chicago you can check out fishing poles and in Woodbine, Iowa, the library loans cake pans (in case you don’t have the size or shape that you need).<\/p>\n

* Lots and lots of questions:<\/strong> Reference librarians answer nearly 6.6 million questions weekly. If all those people with questions lined up, the line would stretch from Ocean City, Maryland to Juneau, Alaska.<\/p>\n

* Appreciation:<\/strong> 90 percent of Americans say the closing of their local public library would impact their community and 67 percent said it would affect them and their families.<\/p>\n

* Bookmobile:<\/strong> Librarian Mary Titcomb came up with the idea of the bookmobile in 1905, and the first one was actually a wagon that made stops around Washington County, Maryland.<\/p>\n

Sources: Libraries for Real Life<\/a>, How Andrew Carnegie Turned His Fortune Into A Library Legacy<\/a> from NPR, Library of Congress Fascinating Facts<\/a>, I Love Libraries<\/a>, 10 facts about Americans and public libraries<\/a> from Pew Research, ALA<\/p>\n

You May Also Like: <\/strong>Tips for helping kids pick great, fun books <\/a><\/p>\n

Prior Post: <\/strong>Disney Bounding is a great way to show your Disney Side at the parks<\/a><\/p>\n

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You can also find Mom Factually on Pinterest<\/a> and Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Break out the books (and DVDs, CDs, and host of other resources available at your local public library) because it’s National Library Week! First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country. Let’s celebrate with some fun facts about public libraries. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1887"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7905,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887\/revisions\/7905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}