National Center for Education Statistics

Table 8. Number of items in library collections and the number of times items are in circulation at Title IV degree-granting institutions, by level and control of institution, and type of library collection or circulation: United States, fiscal year 2021
Type of library collection or circulation		All institutions	4-year				2-year
			Public	Private			Public	Private
				Nonprofit	For-profit			Nonprofit	For-profit
Total library collections		3,503,906,186	1,222,159,118	1,325,182,756	96,317,768		566,569,444	24,560,598	269,116,502
Physical library collections (books, media, and serials)		892,356,080	514,238,237	338,719,034	1,915,285		36,614,443	387,252	481,829
Physical books		715,069,988	396,212,394	282,828,983	1,548,076		33,717,613	344,318	418,604
Physical media		155,483,583	104,132,018	48,431,105	280,122		2,570,194	32,684	37,460
Physical serials		21,802,509	13,893,825	7,458,946	87,087		326,636	10,250	25,765
Digital/electronic library collections (books, databases, media, and serials)		2,611,550,106	707,920,881	986,463,722	94,402,483		529,955,001	24,173,346	268,634,673
Digital/electronic books		1,363,857,853	467,635,788	550,617,362	64,039,798		193,726,942	5,874,731	81,963,232
Databases		1,464,426	458,162	484,795	41,670		125,482	93,957	260,360
Digital/electronic media		653,458,789	156,724,988	183,586,952	21,181,967		205,688,124	17,363,509	68,913,249
Digital/electronic serials		592,769,038	83,101,943	251,774,613	9,139,048		130,414,453	841,149	117,497,832
Total library circulations		1,074,154,113	479,181,992	310,236,412	62,629,073		203,237,642	1,232,405	17,636,589
Physical library circulations (books, media, and serials)1		13,479,804	5,351,930	6,653,558	145,000		1,274,470	19,006	35,840
Digital/electronic circulations2 (books, databases, media, and serials)		1,060,674,309	473,830,062	303,582,854	62,484,073		201,963,172	1,213,399	17,600,749

¹Physical library circulation is defined as usage of physical books, media, or serials whether viewed within the library or at an off-site location.

²Digital/electronic circulation is defined as usage of digital/electronic titles whether viewed, downloaded, or streamed.

NOTE: Title IV institutions are those with a written agreement with the U.S. Department of Education that allows the institution to participate in any of the Title IV federal student financial assistance programs. United States includes the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The four U.S. service academies that are not Title IV eligible are included in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) universe because they are federally funded and open to the public and are included in this table. Definitions for terms used in this table may be found in the IPEDS online glossary located at https://surveys.nces.ed.gov/ipeds/public/glossary. The glossary is primarily focused on terms used in the current IPEDS collection and may not reflect the definitions in effect when the data in this table were collected.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, IPEDS, Spring 2022, Academic Libraries component (provisional data).