Today we celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Library Map of the World, and would like to thank all those whose work, dedication and ongoing commitment is enabling this powerful advocacy tool.

The Library Map of the World website went live on 21 August 2017 with library data from 75 countries and a small number of stories illustrating how libraries contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In five years, the LMW has grown substantially providing data and as a resource for library-related SDG stories. During this time, we added full country profiles allowing LMW users to easily learn about the library landscape in each country.

Today, the LMW website offers three types of content:

  • Data – a source of country-level library statistics covering all library types; data that can be downloaded and used in briefs, presentations, and advocacy.
  • Country profiles – a source of information about the library environment, organisations and institutions, policy and legislation, education for profession, and national events in each country; all about libraries in one place that highlights priorities, issues, and achievements in the library field in each country.
  • SDG stories – a collection of inspiring stories about impactful library programmes contributing to achievement of the SDGs; stories that can be used with stakeholders to demonstrate the impact of libraries on the lives of people in their communities to motivate, persuade, and inspire them to act.

We celebrate having 135 countries and territories with library data, 28 full country profiles, and 56 SDG stories on the Map today.

This has been possible due to the strong engagement and partnership with our 190 established contributors in 170 countries and territories – every national library association, national library, or other organisation that we worked with and the 50 SDG Story contributors.

Our Contributors – we thank you for all your work, continuous engagement in keeping the LMW contents up to date, and commitment to our shared goals of creating awareness about the state of libraries in the world, demonstrating the impact of libraries on people’s lives and communities through SDG stories and providing everyone with data and evidence for library advocacy.

We look forward to more years of collaboration.

We are creating it together – the Library Map of the World – our powerful advocacy tool.