Hamilton County is home to the busiest public library in the state of Ohio and the third busiest in the United States.
Cardholders of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County checked out more than 19.8 million items in 2017. According to the 2018 Public Library Data Service (PLDS) statistical report, that makes the Library the third busiest system in the United States,* trailing only the New York Public Library and the King County Library System in Washington State. Residents of Hamilton County checked out 4.1 million more items than cardholders of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, making our Library the busiest in the state of Ohio.
The report is published each year by the Public Library Association, the largest division of the American Library Association. The 2018 PLDS report is based on survey responses collected from more than 2,800 public libraries in the United States and Canada for fiscal year 2017.
The Library credits a range of convenient services, including curbside service, for the robust circulation numbers. On Aug. 1, the Library rolled out another customer service improvement: auto-renewal of items. That means our cardholders get one courtesy renewal for the first loan period, and then items are automatically renewed at the end of each successive loan period if there are no holds for other customers or other problems with their account.
“Our staff works hard every day to make sure our cardholders can find and check out the items they want, when they want them,” said Paula Brehm-Heeger, the interim Eva Jane Romaine Coombe Director of the Library. “We are hoping that our partnerships with organizations like the Cincinnati Observatory, the Family Nurturing Center and OhioMeansJobs will bring new users into the Library and help new customers connect with the items they want and need.”
*The PLDS does not rank libraries. Rankings were calculated locally based on data from the survey.
