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The nation's libraries, museums, historical societies, archives, and scientific institutions hold in their collections 13 billion items, from furniture to photos and sheet music to soil samples. These make up the tangible objects of the United States' national heritage and are cataloged, shelved, stored, and protected. Digital collections are now reaching new audiences and challenging institutions large and small.

In 2004, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) supported Heritage Preservation in conducting the Heritage Health Index Survey (HHIS). This survey assessed the preservation needs of America's cultural heritage institutions and provided a benchmarking tool for collections care practice. Ten years later, IMLS took a look at where collections care and management challenges and opportunities stood. The 2014 survey included many questions similar to those in 2004 and introduced new questions about preservation of digital collections.

The data contains records for 1,714 collecting institutions. The sample was stratified by type of institution (archives, historical societies, libraries, museums, and scientific collections) and size (large/medium or small). These institutions represent a universe of 31,290 collecting institutions. For the purposes of HHIS, eligibility was based on whether institutions had accepted preservation responsibility for collections of nonliving tangible and digital collections but excluded collections meant to be used by visitors or patrons and disposed of or replaced if they are lost or damaged.

This study is designed to contribute to community understanding of the attitudes and behaviors of United States college and university librarians. This 2006 study builds upon studies that targeted United States faculty members in 2000 and 2003, and complements a similar study of United States faculty members that was conducted in 2006. Topics covered by this study include: the role of the library on the modern campus, impressions about electronic resources, digital institutional repositories, and the preservation of scholarly journals. This study was meant to develop a descriptive overview of librarians' attitudes, behaviors, perceptions, and priorities. It targeted collection development librarians at United States institutes of higher education, as well as some executive-level librarians at larger campuses (included to ensure an accurate reflection of high-level thinking in these types of schools). Respondents were asked questions such as "Which of the following best describes how your repositories are maintained or managed?" and "How important is working with faculty to incorporate information resources into their lectures and curricula?" Demographic information about institutional size was also gathered in this study.

An overview of major findings may be found on the Ithaka Web site.

The Ithaka S+R Library Survey 2022 examines strategy and leadership issues from the perspective of library deans and directors at not-for-profit four-year academic institutions across the United States. Respondents were asked about their strategies related to services, collections, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA), budget, and personnel, their leadership roles within and outside of the library, and their vision for the role of the library. Demographic variables include respondents' number of years in their position, respondents' age, race/ethnicity, and Carnegie Classification.

The Public Libraries Survey (PLS) provides statistics on the status of public libraries in the United States. It is a voluntary survey conducted annually by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 survey is the 26th in the series.

The data files include all public libraries identified by state library administrative agencies in the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the outlying areas of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The reporting unit for the survey is the administrative entity, defined as the agency that is legally established under local or state law to provide public library service to the population of a local jurisdiction. In this survey, the term public library means an administrative entity.

For Fiscal Year 2014, IMLS collected the following information via a web-based survey for the PLS:

• Library Data - Data on each public library, such as its name and address, population of legal service area, service outlets, collections, full-time-equivalent staff, and operating revenue and expenditures. State characteristics data, including the reporting period starting and ending dates, the state total population estimate, and the total unduplicated population of legal service areas for the state. These data are contained in dataset 1 and include 9,305 records; 9,295 were public libraries and 10 were administrative entities that closed or temporarily closed for FY 2014.
• State Data - Each state library agency reported these data on the "State Characteristics" record because they are not library-level data. These data are in dataset 2 and include 56 records, one for each state and outlying area.
• Outlet Data - Data on each public library service outlet, such as its name and address, type, county location, metropolitan status, square footage, public service hours per year, and number of weeks a library outlet is open. These data are in dataset 3 and include 17,566 total records, 17,492 are public library service outlets (central, branch, bookmobile, and books-by-mail-only outlets). The remaining 74 records are outlets that closed or temporarily closed for FY 2014.

This data collection is useful to researchers, journalists, the public, and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels. These data are used by federal, state and local officials, professional associations, and local practitioners for planning, evaluation, and policy making.

The Public Libraries Survey (PLS) provides statistics on the status of public libraries in the United States. It is a voluntary survey conducted annually by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 survey is the 27th in the series.

The data files include all public libraries identified by state library administrative agencies in the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the outlying areas of American Samoa and Guam. The reporting unit for the survey is the administrative entity, defined as the agency that is legally established under local or state law to provide public library service to the population of a local jurisdiction. In this survey, the term public library means an administrative entity.

For Fiscal Year 2015, IMLS collected the following information via a web-based survey for the PLS:

• Library Data - Data on each public library, such as its name and address, population of legal service area, service outlets, collections, full-time-equivalent staff, and operating revenue and expenditures. State characteristics data, including the reporting period starting and ending dates, the state total population estimate, and the total unduplicated population of legal service areas for the state. These data are contained in dataset 1 and include 9,251 records; 9,231 were public libraries and 20 were administrative entities that closed or temporarily closed for FY 2015.
• State Data - Each state library agency reported these data on the "State Characteristics" record because they are not library-level data. These data are in dataset 2 and include 53 records, one for each state and outlying area.
• Outlet Data - Data on each public library service outlet, such as its name and address, type, county location, metropolitan status, square footage, public service hours per year, and number of weeks a library outlet is open. These data are in dataset 3 and include 17,408 total records. The file includes identifying information and a few basic data items for public library service outlets (central, branch, bookmobile, and books-by-mail-only outlets). The file includes 17,328 outlets in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, 8 outlets in the outlying areas, and 72 records for outlets that were reported as closed or were temporarily closed for FY 2015.

This data collection is useful to researchers, journalists, the public, and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels. These data are used by federal, state and local officials, professional associations, and local practitioners for planning, evaluation, and policy making.

The Public Libraries Survey (PLS) is a voluntary census of public libraries conducted annually by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The Fiscal Year (FY) 2016, 2017, and 2018 surveys are the 28th, 29th, and 30th in the series, respectively. The American Institutes for Research (AIR) served as the data collection agent for all three surveys.

The PLS data files include all public libraries identified by state library administrative agencies in the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the outlying territories of American Samoa and Guam. The Northern Mariana Islands participated in FY 2017 and FY 2018, and the U.S. Virgin Islands participated in FY 2018. The reporting unit in each state or territory for the survey is the administrative entity (AE), defined as the agency that is legally established under local or state law to provide public library service to the population of a local jurisdiction. In this survey, the terms public library and public library system mean an AE. The AE may have a single outlet or multiple outlets. The term "outlet" refers to a library point of service, which may be a physical building, bookmobile, or a books-by-mail provider. Each PLS collected the following information:

• Data from each public library, such as its name and address, population of legal service area, service outlets, collections, full-time-equivalent (FTE) staff, and operating revenue and expenditures (see Appendix F). These data were reported in the AE record.
• State characteristics data, including the state total population estimate, the total unduplicated population of legal service areas for the state, and the state's reporting period start and end dates (see the survey questionnaire in Appendix F, items 100-103). Each state library administrative agency reported these data in the state characteristics record because they are not library-level data.
• Data from each public library service outlet, such as its name and address, type, county location, square footage, public service hours per year, and number of weeks it is open (see Appendix F). These data were reported in the outlet record.

This data collection is useful to researchers, journalists, the public, and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels. These data are used by federal, state and local officials, professional associations, and local practitioners for planning, evaluation, and policy making.

The Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) is a system of related questionnaires that provide descriptive data on the context of elementary and secondary education and provide policymakers a variety of statistics on the condition of education in the United States. The SASS system covers a wide range of topics from teacher demand, teacher and principal characteristics, general conditions in schools, principals' and teachers' perceptions of school climate and problems in their schools, teacher compensation, district hiring and retention practices, to basic characteristics of the student population.

Questionnaires, methodology information and summary tables can be downloaded directly from the SASS website. Of cultural interest are the data on library and media centers which offer insights into subjects such as library staffing, library collections, and library expenditures. These data can be accessed through the National Center for Education Statistics DataLab.

Policymakers involved in arts and culture would find tables from the SASS/TFS Table Library important to their work, including the following:

• Number and percentage of public school teachers whose main assignment is in arts and music, by main teaching assignment and community type: 2011-12
• Number of public schools that reported having library media centers, by state: 2011-12
• Average number of holdings, additions, and expenditures in library media centers during 2010-11 for various kinds of materials, by state: 2011-12
• Average hours public and private third grade students spent on art and music during a typical full week of school, by selected school characteristics: 2007-08