2 Reporting Unit and Primary Target Population

A library forming an integral part of a college, university, or other academic institution for postsecondary education, organized and administered to meet the needs of students, faculty, and affiliated staff of the institution. Note: An academic library's population may include undergraduate and graduate students as well as faculty. The central library facility normally reports for branch and independent libraries (e.g. law or medical libraries) of a particular institution or campus.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: academic
Aggregate: yes

ARL Statistics Questionnaire

Any independent library, or a group of libraries, under a single director or a single administration. Note 1: The term "independent" does not imply legal or financial independence but only that the library is a recognizably separate unit, typically within a larger organization. Note 2: Typically the administrative unit is an organization containing a central/main library, branch libraries and administrative functions.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: academic, public, school, special, state
Aggregate: yes

A bookmobile is a traveling branch library. It consists of at least all of the following:

1. A truck or van that carries an organized collection of library materials.
2. Paid staff.
3. Regularly scheduled hours (bookmobile stops) for being open to the public.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: public, school, state
Aggregate: yes

A branch library is an auxiliary unit of an administrative entity which has at least all of the following:

1. Separate quarters.
2. An organized collection of library materials.
3. Paid staff.
4. Regularly scheduled hours for being open to the public.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: academic, public, school, special, state
Aggregate: yes

A library maintained to serve any government service, department or agency, or parliament, including international, national and local (regional) government organizations.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: special, state
Aggregate: yes

A library which serves health service professionals in hospitals or elsewhere, whether in the private or public sector. Note: Pharmaceutical company libraries should be included under Industrial/Commercial Library.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: special
Aggregate: yes

A library in any industrial enterprise or business firm, maintained by the parent organization to serve the information needs of its staff. Note: Includes libraries maintained by information and management consultants, manufacturing and service industries and libraries of commercial legal practices.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: special
Aggregate: yes

A Library Cooperative (network, system, and consortium) is an organization that has a formal arrangement whereby library and information services are supported for the mutual benefit of participating libraries. It must meet all of the following criteria:

1. Participants/members are primarily libraries.
2. The organization is a U.S. not-for-profit entity which has its own budget and its own paid staff.
3. The organization serves multiple institutions (e.g., libraries, school districts) that are not under the organization's administrative control.
4. The scope of the organization's activities includes support of library and information services by performing such functions as resource sharing, training, planning, and advocacy.

Source: library
Applicability: international, national, state
Library Type: cooperative, network
Aggregate: yes

A main or central library is a single outlet library or the library which is the operational center of a multiple-outlet library. Usually all processing is centralized here and the principal collections are housed here.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: academic, public, school, special, state
Aggregate: yes

A library that is responsible for acquiring and conserving copies of all relevant documents to the country in which the library is located; it may function as a legal deposit library. Note 1: It will also normally perform some or all of the following functions: produce the national bibliography, hold and keep up to date a large and representative collection of foreign literature including documents about the country; act as a national bibliographic information center; compile union catalogues; supervise the administration of other libraries and/or promote collaboration; coordinate a research and development service, etc. Note 2: The definition of 'national library' allows for more than one in a country.

Source: library
Applicability: international, national, state
Library Type: special
Aggregate: yes

A library that serves all residents of a given community, district, or region, and (typically) receives its financial support, in whole or part, from public funds. Public libraries make their basic collections and services available to the population of their legal service area without charges to individual users. Products and services beyond the library's basic services may or may not be provided to the public, with or without individual charges. Individual charges may be assessed to library users outside the legal service area of the library. In addition to including the tax-supported municipal, county, and regional public libraries, this definition includes privately-and federally-controlled libraries governed by single board of trustees or other authority, and administered by a single director. Examples of public libraries include:

• A city library with its branches.
• A county, multicounty, or regional library with outlets functioning as branches.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: public
Aggregate: yes

A library that is an integral part of the educational program of an elementary or secondary school providing materials and services that meet the curricular, information, and recreational needs of students, teachers, and administrators. This entity may be called a library, media center, resource center, information center, instructional materials center, learning resource center, or some other name.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: school
Aggregate: yes

A special library is a library within a business firm, professional association, government agency, hospital, research institution or other organized group; a library maintained by a parent organization to support a specialized clientèle; or an independent library that may provide materials or services or both to the public, or to other libraries. Special libraries are sometimes called information centers. Scope of collections and services are limited to the subject interests of the host or parent organization and usually have depth within those subject areas.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: special
Aggregate: yes

A State Library Agency is the official agency of a State charged by the law of that State with the extension and development of public library services throughout the State, and has adequate authority under the law of the State to administer State plans in accordance with the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA).

Source: library
Applicability: international, national, state
Library Type: state
Aggregate: yes

An academic library's target population may include undergraduates and graduate students as well as faculty.

• 2.2.1.1 Faculty: Full time.
• 2.2.1.2 Faculty: Part time.
• 2.2.1.3 Graduate and First Professional Students: Full Time.
• 2.2.1.4 Graduate and First Professional Students: Part Time.
• 2.2.1.5 Undergraduate Students: Full Time.
• 2.2.1.6 Undergraduate Students: Part Time.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: academic
Aggregate: yes

ARL Statistics Questionnaire

The target population for a library network or cooperative is the participating libraries.

• 2.2.6.1 Academic Libraries.
• 2.2.6.2 Public Libraries.
• 2.2.6.3 School Library Media Centers.
• 2.2.6.4 Special Libraries.

Source: library
Applicability: international, national, state
Library Type: cooperative, network
Aggregate: yes

The target population of a public library is the population of the legal service area.

Population of the Legal Service Area
The total unduplicated population of those areas in a state that receive library services. The population of unserved areas is not included in this figure. Note 1: For states that have no overlapping jurisdictions, this number will be identical to the state's total population of legal service areas. Note 2: The state's most recent official state population figures for jurisdictions in the state are used as the basis for calculating the total unduplicated population of legal service areas.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: public
Aggregate: yes

The target population of a school library media center are both the students and faculty.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: school
Aggregate: yes

The target population of a special library is the group of persons that the special library is intended to serve, generally the staff of the parent organization.

Source: library
Applicability: international, local, national, state
Library Type: special
Aggregate: yes

The target population of a state library agency may include blind and physically handicapped individuals, residents of State correctional institutions, residents of other State institutions, State government employees and the general public. Note: State library agencies may include archives. The governance structure of archives is outside the scope of this data dictionary.

• 2.2.6.1 Blind and Physically Handicapped Individuals.
  Outlets serving this user group may contain talking books on discs and tapes and books in Braille made available from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, a division of the Library of Congress. In addition, these outlets may contain large print books for the visually handicapped and captioned films for the deaf. These outlets provide library materials and library services to blind or physically handicapped residents who have been certified by competent authority as unable to read or to use conventional printed materials as a result of physical limitations.
• 2.2.6.2 General Public.
  Outlets serving this user group function as the State-level equivalent of a local public library, providing books, other library materials, and electronic access to locally mounted and remote information resources for all State residents. These outlets serve the general public, regardless of whether they are open on a walk-in or referral basis.
• 2.2.6.3 Residents of Other State Institutions.
  Outlets serving this user group provide books, other library materials, access to other information resources and other library services to patients or residents of residential training schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and other general or special institutions operated or substantially supported by the State.
• 2.2.6.4 Residents of State Correctional Institutions.
  Outlets serving this user group provide books, other library materials, access to other information resources and other library services to residents of prisons, reformatories, and other correctional institutions operated or substantially supported by the State.
• 2.2.6.5 State Government Employees, (executive, legislative, or judicial).
  Outlets serving this user group provide books, other library materials, access to other information resources and other library services to employees of all branches of State government.

Source: library
Applicability: international, national, state
Library Type: state
Aggregate: yes