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 19.9 million items in 2018. According to the 2019 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.
The report is published each year by the Public Library Association, the largest division of the American Library Association. The 2019 PLDS report is based on survey responses collected from more than 2,800 public libraries in the United States and Canada for the fiscal year 2018.
*The PLDS does not rank libraries. Rankings were calculated locally based on data from the survey.
