There were a total of 2097 lending facilities in 2008 in the form of main libraries, branch libraries, mobile libraries and other lending facilities. This work was performed by 5795 employees, a reduction of two per cent on 2007. One fifth of all FTEs concerned activities for children and young people. Just over eight out of ten employees were women. The total operating cost per resident of Sweden was SEK 387, of which twelve per cent was spent on purchasing media. There were 4.3 books and AV media items per resident at municipal libraries. There were just over 2.7 million active borrowers who borrowed almost 70 million media items, of which 58 million were books.
Public library stocks accounted for almost 40 million books and just over 3 million AV media items. Roughly two thirds were adult books, a third children’s books and the remaining three per cent was reference literature. There were also 8400 newspaper subscriptions and almost 79,000 periodical subscriptions. This is a reduction on 2007. More than eight out of ten newspapers and nine out of ten periodicals were written in Swedish. The proportion of newlyacquired books was five per cent of book stocks and the proportion of newly-acquired AV media items was eleven per cent of AV stocks.
Four out of ten library units were integrated with school libraries in 2008. This meant that just over one in ten schools had access to a school library in this way. Under the Swedish Libraries Act, every municipality has had to draw up a plan for its library activities since 2005. Almost six out of ten municipalities, 59%, had a library plan in 2008. This was an increase on the previous year.
A total of almost 68 million visits were made to municipal libraries in 2008. Some of these visits were as a result of the public activities arranged by all public libraries. There were almost 86,000 different public activities within the framework of the libraries’ activities. It is known that this is an underestimate of the actual number. Seven out of ten activities were aimed primarily at children and young people. The activities consisted mainly of various language stimulation measures aimed at children.
In summary, it can be said that the number of branches and other lending facilities and the number of staff have fallen over an extended period of time. It has also become commoner for school libraries and municipal libraries to share resources via integration. The fall in resources is small from year to year. However, over an extended period of time, it can be regarded as a downward trend.