Place to see: Columbus Metropolitan Library, Columbus, Ohio, United States

About this place:

"The Columbus Metropolitan Library has been serving residents of Central Ohio for more than 125 years.

The Public Library and Reading Room opened in 1873 in the New City Hall and since has expanded to 20 branches and a Main Library. The collection has grown to include 3 million items. But the library is much more than the number of items on the shelf. It is a staff of dedicated librarians who devote themselves to the community's good by helping children learn to read, guiding new Americans to critical resources, directing entrepreneurs to important business information and sharing great reads with the public. Every day our staff make an impact on someone's life. Just as they have for 125 years.

At Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML), our mission is "to promote reading and guide learning in the pursuit of information, knowledge, and wisdom."

We accomplish this mission through services to the public, including Summer Reading Clubs, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes, free access to extensive databases and much, much more.

Consequently, our library is one of the most-used library systems in the country. It consistently ranks at the top of its class. The ranking is based on such categories as circulation of materials, customer visits per hour and number of volumes owned per capita. Last year, customers borrowed more than 16 million items, made 8.2 million visits to the library and asked 1.2 million reference questions.

Columbus Metropolitan Library includes the Main Library, Outreach Services Division and 20 branches conveniently located throughout Franklin County. CML also jointly operates the Northwest Library in cooperation with Worthington Libraries. Southwest Public Libraries and Worthington Libraries also share resources with CML. "