Purpose: The State Library Administrative Agency (SLAA) survey provides descriptive information about state library agencies.

Coverage: The data are collected from 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Content: The data includes information on state library agency identification, governance, public service hours, service outlets, collections, library service transactions, library development transactions, services to other libraries in the state, allied operations, staff, income, expenditures, and electronic services and other related information.

Frequency: Collected annually since 1994. Since 2010, data collection occurs every two years.

Methods: The data are collected over the Internet via a Web based reporting system.

Use: These data collected are useful to Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA), policymakers in the executive and legislative branches of federal and state governments, government and library administrators at the federal, state, and local levels, the American Library Association and its members or customers, library and public policy researchers, the public, journalists, and others.

Please note that the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) conducted the SLAAs Surveys and produced the data files between Fiscal Year (FY) 1994 and FY 2005.

* Access files for FY 1994 - FY 1997 are in Access 97 format.

1 Please read this important notice concerning Connecticut's data (Revised September 2014) (PDF; 177 KB)

If you have questions about the content of the survey files, please email IMLS Staff.