American adults read a book of any kind in 2022.
Yet it’s important to point out that while visits to libraries have not yet rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, they are growing, in part because their program offerings are expanding. Adults and children in the U.S. made more than 800 million visits to a library in 2023, an average of 2.2 million visits per day and nearly double the number in 2021. There are over 17,000 public library locations in the United States — more than the number of hospitals or McDonald’s.
Ask most Americans what critical infrastructure looks like, and they’ll likely describe a bridge, power grid or broadband cable. They probably won’t mention the single-room library in Donnelly, Idaho, which supports families in the remote community with after-school care, or the more than 2,600 free summer events being run by the District of Columbia Public Library System.
But that’s exactly the kind of vital role public libraries fill every day in this country. If we want to ensure families can access all the resources and programming libraries offer, we need a better way to broadcast libraries’ services.
The surge in visits is proof of a growing public reliance on libraries at the very moment when federal and state budget cuts are stripping away other community resources.
Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.
From cradle to career and beyond, public libraries connect community members to early literacy programs, after-school enrichment, English language classes, workforce training, college and career counseling, broadband internet, passport and notary services and much more.
Walk into a public library on a Tuesday afternoon and you might find a “STEAM Team” session in which elementary schoolers are making fairy slime, middle schoolers are constructing popsicle stick catapults or high schoolers are producing podcasts.
Come back Saturday morning and the same room will be packed with toddlers and caregivers doing a sing-along that pediatricians would tell you is exactly the kind of early language exposure that predicts school readiness.
This is programming that rivals — and often surpasses — what parents are shelling out hundreds of dollars for at private enrichment centers. And it’s free.
It’s past time we treated libraries like the critical community institutions that they are. Because free is not always findable.
Philanthropy can help — and the precedent is over a century old. Andrew Carnegie funded the construction of nearly 1,700 public libraries across the country, betting that broad access to knowledge was the backbone of a democratic society.
That bet paid off. Today, philanthropy needs to double down on it.
Research shows that parents look for educational resources through internet searches, school websites and word of mouth. But while they are searching for “tutoring near me free” and “college essay help” and “STEM camp for kids,” many public libraries are simply relying on promotion methods like flyers posted on their bulletin boards, targeting people already visiting the library.
What’s missing is the modern infrastructure that turns a library’s offerings into something a working parent can actually find on their phone at 9 p.m. — discoverable on the platforms families already use, integrated with the schools and community organizations they already trust, and supported by the staff capacity and shared technology to keep it current.
Public funding rightly pays for library buildings, collections and staff. Philanthropy can do something different: support innovation, test new approaches, build technology that can be shared across thousands of libraries and help successful models spread nationwide to ensure that the services communities rely on are visible, accessible and responsive to changing needs.
Related: OPINION: Book bans draw libraries into damaging culture wars that undermine their purpose
Libraries don’t just need a single pilot or a one-time digital makeover. They need sustained investment in the connections between libraries and the public.
In practice, that means paying for libraries to hire staff who can reach families online, building shared technology that small and rural libraries can use without needing their own tech teams and partnering with the education websites parents already use to look for information.
Closing this gap between programs and access doesn’t require reinventing anything; it requires connecting what already exists to where families are already looking.
Surfacing public library programs alongside school data shouldn’t be a heavy lift. Schools and community organizations can list library events alongside after-school options and point parents to free resources many don’t know exist.
The stakes go beyond access to programs. Americans are losing faith in shared institutions, but libraries are one of the few we still trust — and one of the few civic spaces still bridging the divides that seemingly keep deepening everywhere else.
Letting libraries drift into invisibility while the families who most need them search online is not a choice we should make.
The buildings are already there. The programming is already extraordinary. Now, the call to action for philanthropy is to strengthen one of America’s most trusted institutions so every family can find, access and benefit from the opportunities libraries already provide.
Jon Deane is CEO of GreatSchools, a nonprofit school information platform, helping more than 40 million parents annually access trusted school data and make informed decisions about their children’s education.
Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.
This story about public libraries and education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.
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