Quotable Facts from the American Library Association (ALA)

Americans spend six times as much on home video games ($5.5 billion) as they do on school library materials for their children.

The highest achieving students come from schools with good library media centers.

Students visit school library media centers some 2.2 billion times during the school year — more than twice the number of visits to state and national parks.

There are more public libraries than McDonald's — a total of 15,946, including branches.

An estimated 37 percent of public library visitors are children.

Almost half of children ages 3 to 8 visit a library each month.

Some 86 percent of public libraries offer preschool story hour and other programs for preschool and kindergarten age children.

More than 80 percent of adults responding to a Gallup Poll believe it is very important that the public library be a "discovery and learning center" for preschool children.

About two-thirds of all public libraries are connected to the Internet.  About 12 percent of elementary schools and 21 percent of high school libraries are connected.