The US experience of 181% growth in public library visits from 1990 to 2014 contrasts sharply with the UK experience.

I don’t have to hand the figures for 1990 but over the period 1995-2015 UK public library visits fell by 30%.

That’s a big difference in performance. The US article mentions a number of reasons for the success of US public libraries.

Is anybody in the libraries establishment looking into why UK public libraries have under-performed compared to their US counterparts?

Hi Elizabeth, I was thinking of Little Chalfont Community Library http://www.littlechalfontlibrary.org.uk/ which has been going for ten years now. Also in Buckinghamshire, there’s Chalfont St Giles. I was also thinking of New Cross Learning (once New Cross People’s Library) https://newxlearning.org/. Rothley Community Library https://rothleycommunitylibrary.co.uk/ also seems to be doing pretty well, as well as a few mentioned in the DDCMS report itself. I have not been to any of these but see reports. Happy to be corrected from you or anyone else with evidence otherwise. The purpose here is to try to seek what is actually happening, however much I’d like to believe otherwise. Hence the word “inconvenient”.

Really, Ian?

Please name them.