More Canadians Go To Public Libraries Than Movie Theatres
February 8, 2020
In the spirit of the Oscars being presented this weekend in Hollywood, as well as the recent Gallup poll that found more Americans spent their leisure time inside libraries than they did going to movie theatres, let’s take a look at what the Canadian data shows.
Published data from Statistics Canada and from the provincial & territorial government departments/agencies responsible for public libraries show that public libraries receive more visits from Canadians than movie theatres do. The combined number of library visits from two provinces (Ontario and British Columbia) alone exceeds the number of visits to movies theatres in each of the survey years.
2014 | 2016 | 2018 |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Movie Theatres Attendance (All of Canada) | 99,393,310 | 100,287,943 | 96,032,391 |
| Public Library Visits (ON & BC only) | 101,937,487 | 101,486,750 | 103,339,735 |
Sources:
- Movie theatre attendance: Statistics Canada. Table 21-10-0180-01 Motion picture theatres, theatre operations
- Public library visits: see table below
Public Library Visits (2014, 2016, 2018)
2014 | 2016 | 2018 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AB | 18,457,165 | 21,091,176 | - | Source |
| BC | 31,717,887 | 29,879,900 | 30,365,135 | Source |
| MB | 4,847,866 | 4,753,824 | 4,643,896 | Source |
| NB | 1,909,402 | 2,082,881 | - | Source |
| NL | - | - | - | |
| NS | 4,244,000 | 4,581,000 | - | Source |
| NT | - | - | - | |
| NU | - | - | - | |
| ON | 70,219,600 | 71,606,850 | 72,974,600 | Source |
| PE | - | - | - | |
| QC | 26,384,629 | 28,169,404 | - | Source |
| SK | 5,761,253 | 4,545,000 | - | Source |
| YK | - | - | - | |
| Total | 163,541,802 | 166,710,035 | 107,983,631 |
3 replies on “More Canadians Go To Public Libraries Than Movie Theatres”
Why is there no data for NL and other places?
The data presented is based on information that has been published to the websites of Statistics Canada and the provincial and territorial government departments/agencies responsible for public libraries.
Where no data is presented, it is because either the data for that reporting period is not yet available (2018) or the jurisdiction has not published data on library visits.
What I find most disappointing about such reports are the missing data. To what do we ascribe this? Irresponsible provincial and territorial agencies that should be reporting these figures? Can CULC do anything about this? Our profession (quite rightly) tries to push back whenever there are threatened budget cuts at provincial or municipal levels, but we don’t even provide, a little alone promote, the most basic of library user statistics to justify financial support. Am I missing something?