The full text report (HTML) is available here. 

Press release: ALA releases 2014 State of America’s Libraries Report

Zmags version of the report at American Libraries Magazine 

2014 State of America’s Libraries Report (PDF 9.4MB)

Highlights From the Report (via ALA News Release and Report Intro):

• Libraries continue to transform to meet society’s changing needs, and more than 90 percent of the respondents in an independent national survey said that libraries are important to the community.

• More than 90 percent of traditional public schools have a school library, but public schools continue to struggle with the impact of funding cuts. For public school libraries, that means that professional staffing has been targeted for cuts nationwide.

• More and more public libraries are turning to the use of web technologies, including websites, online account access, blogs, rich site summary (RSS) feeds, catalog search boxes, sharing interfaces, Facebook and Twitter.

• The economic downturn is continuing at most institutions of higher learning, and academic librarians are working to transform programs and services by re-purposing space and redeploying staff in the digital resources environment.

• President Obama signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill in January that will fund the federal government through September and partially restore funding to the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) — the primary source of annual funding for libraries in the federal budget — that were dramatically cut in the 2013 fiscal year under sequestration.

• Current trends in library building and renovation include open-plan space, which provides flexibility for future modifications; semi-private space, which recognizes that open-plan space may not be appropriate for every activity or suit the taste of every user; and technology-rich space, which should permeate the library and enable users to be the best learners they can.

• The transformation of libraries in terms of outreach and diversity takes many forms, with initiatives targeting an ever-wider range of underserved populations—including those who would become librarians.

Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2013

1. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey

2. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

4. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

6. A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl  by Tanya Lee Stone

7. Looking for Alaska by John Green

8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

9. Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

10. Bone (series) by Jeff Smith”

Stephen