Jan 6

Written by: Joe Longo
Tuesday, January 06, 2009 

Yes, the public library is well used by more than 40,000 active registered borrowers and the statistics continue to show it!

We are pleased to see that 2008 set another all-time borrowing record at the Niagara Falls Public Library with 692,884 books, magazines, audio visual and electronic materials having been loaned to the public.

Each of our four libraries showed increases in 2008 with Community Centre Branch leading the way with an impressive 12% increase over 2007. This was our hope as more residents in this growing area can now more conveniently get to a neighbourhood library.
The last all-time borrowing record was set as recently as 2006 when 675,169 items were loaned.

We conducted a one week survey of library use from Nov. 17 to 23, 2008 which resulted in the following statistics.

That week 10,742 people in total entered one of our libraries consisting of 5,265 at the Victoria Avenue Library, 3,017 at Community Centre Branch, 2,005 at Stamford Branch and 455 at Chippawa Branch.

13,357 books and other resources were borrowed in total consisting of 6,326 at the Victoria Avenue Library, 3,816 at Community Centre Branch, 2,273 at Stamford Branch and 942 at Chippawa Branch.

That week there were 47,109 uses of our electronic databases, 1,875 reference questions answered and 4,933 books and other items used within the libraries. Hundreds of children attend dozens of programs during weeks when events are scheduled.

The Ministry of Culture just released statistics for 2006 for all Ontario public libraries and Niagara Falls has cracked the top ten for annual library transactions with 3,276,069 transactions recorded which moves us up from twelfth place the previous year.

In addition to borrowing, this figure also includes use of our electronic resources, the number of reference questions, interlibrary loans, those attending library programs, books and other resources used within the library and people entering the library.

The following are the only other libraries in Ontario which had more annual library transactions than Niagara Falls. In descending order they are Toronto, Ottawa, Mississauga, Hamilton, Markham, London, Brampton, Vaughan and Richmond Hill.