For the fifth year in a row, the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library system has received the highest possible rating in the Library Journal’s 2013 Index of Public Library Service. Library Journal is a trade journal that reports news about the library world and has a nation-wide circulation of 100,000.
The five-star rating is given to the top U.S. libraries each year. Heights Libraries has earned five stars in five out of the six years that Library Journal has published the ratings, starting in 2008.
Libraries are rated on four criteria: circulation, visits, program attendance and Internet terminal use (public computers).
“This shows what we’ve known all along: People in our community are using the library regularly,” says Heights Libraries Director Nancy Levin. “For many customers we’ve become that 'third place,' the place besides work and home where they like to be. We are always busy, and I don’t see that trend reversing anytime soon.”
Heights Libraries wasn’t the only other Cuyahoga County area library receiving Star Awards; other area libraries to win are Cleveland Public (4 stars), Cuyahoga County (5 stars), and Lakewood (4 stars).
Read the rest of the report here.