Snapshots Alaska by OCLC Western

While attending OCLC Western User Group meeting for Alaska, I attended a presentation by Margi Mann called “Snapshots Alaska.”

As you might have guessed, it was a lot of statistics about libraries in Alaska. They were presented in a quiz format which kept interest high throughout Margi’s presentation.

Here are some highlights:

According to OCLC, Alaska libraries have 4,199,518 holdings. This doesn’t represent titles. Multiple copies of titles count as multiple holdings. Also, some Alaska libraries are not on OCLC, so there are more than 4,199,518 holdings.

Of these holdings, Academic libraries hold 40% of items, public libraries hold 34% of items and “other” libraries hold 26%.

The top four largest public libraries by holdings:

1. Anchorage Municipal Libraries
2. Fairbanks North Star Borough Library
3. Juneau Public Libraries
4. Kenai Public Library

The top five academic libraries in Alaska:

1. University of Alaska Fairbanks
2. University of Alaska Anchorage
3. University of Alaska Southeast (Juneau Campus)
4. UAF Geophysical Institute
5. Matsu College

The top five “other” libraries in Alaska:

1. Anchorage School District
2. Alaska State Library
3. Fairbanks North Star Borough School District
4. ARLIS
5. Ketchikan Gateway School District

Top five libraries by unique holdings:

1. Alaska State Library (yea!)
2. ARLIS
3. Anchorage School District
4. Akeela, Inc (interestingly, this library closed a few years back but never canceled their holdings)
5. Lower Kuskokwim School District

We also got a few stats on Interlibrary Loan, including the fact that our in-state fill rate is 32%. We didn’t think this was so great, but Margi said that this rate was pretty high.