Libraries are a particularly crucial element of the humanities infrastructure. While some scientific knowledge can become quickly outdated, much humanistic knowledge does not, and with their decades’—and in some cases centuries’—worth of holdings of literature, scholarship, and archival materials, public libraries are a primary means through which a humanistic heritage is transmitted from generation to generation.

In spite of the dramatic growth in electronic documentation, public libraries show no sign of having abandoned their traditional role of preserving printed matter and making it available to the general public. Public library holdings of print items grew steadily between 1995 and 2005, with over 120 million printed materials (books and serials) added to the nation’s public collections in the course of the decade (Figure V-7a; existing data do not permit the estimation of such statistics for humanities materials specifically; all figures provided here describe library materials on all subjects).

Figure V-7a, Full Size Supporting Data

Nonetheless, changes in media and technology have had a notable impact on public library holdings, especially insofar as their audio and visual (AV) collections have grown. In 1995, slightly less than 5% of all public library holdings were records, audiotapes, compact discs, and video cassettes. By 2005, the percentage of library holdings that were AV materials had reached 9.1% (Figure V-7b). Libraries have increased their video holdings particularly dramatically, to approximately three and one-half times what they were in 1995.