In 2008/09 there were 13.96 million visits to Welsh libraries, an increase of 3.7% on the previous year. This compares with a year-on-year decrease in England of 1.4%, a decrease of 4.1% in Northern Ireland and an increase of only 0.4% in Scotland.
The number of book issues by Welsh public libraries went up by 6.8% to 14.45 million compared to an increase of 0.6% in England, 1.7% in Scotland and 3.6% in Northern Ireland.
Other figures show:
- Wales is the only country to show an increase in the number of visits per 1,000 of the population: 3.2%.
- Wales is also the only country to show an increase in the number of active borrowers, up by 1.1%, compared with drops in all other three countries.
- The busiest library in Wales was Swansea, with over 565,000 loans (565,876), followed by Wrexham (354,754) and Cardiff Central Library, which was in temporary accommodation, (351,680). Swansea was also the 10th busiest library in the UK in terms of items loaned per annum.
Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones said of the figures:
“Libraries provide an important role in the community and the Welsh Assembly Government is committed to supporting them. Aside from providing a wide range of books, DVDs and CDs for borrowing and reference, libraries offer a meeting place for many local groups, special events and internet services.
“The Assembly Government is working closely with local authorities to further improve our public library services for the benefit of the people of Wales. We are in the final phase of the three year £10.5million Libraries for Life programme which aims to attract more people to use improved facilities and services at libraries.
“Last month I announced around £3million in capital grants to help modernise 12 public libraries and develop library services during 2010/11. A number of large projects are being supported such as those at Pontypool, Rhyl and Aberystwyth.”
