Talk:List of largest libraries in the United States/Archive 1

Unifying sources
Wouldn't it be better to have all the numbers from the same source? Different sources may use different methodologies when counting, and the list cannot afford to have libraries on it whose books are counted differently than others.Mauri96 19:01, 26 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mauri96 (talk • contribs)

National Library of Medicine?
According to the NLM website: "NLM has nearly 12 million books, journals, manuscripts, audiovisuals, and other forms of medical information on its shelves". (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/nlm.html) Historian932 (talk) 23:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Boston Inflation: Volumes vs. Items
The Boston Public Library does not have 23,595,895 volumes as the article claims. It has about that many items of all types (including manuscripts, maps, photos, journals, pamphlets, CD-ROMS, etc.), but only about 8.9 million actual volumes. This error boosts the BPL from 13th place on the list to 2nd place.

The handful of other collections I'm familiar with correctly list volume counts and not item counts. I would change this but (a) I don't have a precise figure, and (b) I don't know how many other libraries are misrepresented this way. Perhaps someone with more information can search for similar errors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.165.34.58 (talk) 18:21, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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Data is pretty stale
The figure for Michigan is roughly 10.8MM, but the actual count per the university is a lot closer to 13MM. The 12.97MM is used by the ARL per this page: http://www.lib.umich.edu/statistical-highlights It would seem that a source this old (roughly 2008) should be updated 209.122.193.109 (talk) 20:38, 19 September 2014 (UTC) University of Illinois claims now 24,000,000 at illinois.edu/about/facts.htmlPbmaise (talk) 05:37, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

United States or North America?
This article includes Canadian libraries, so it really shouldn't be titled "Largest in the United States". Either those libraries should be dropped or the article should be expanded to all North American libraries and Mexico should be considered as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:F140:6000:7:900E:91C6:8F4C:BE38 (talk) 19:36, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Kings College Libraries?
The "Kings College Libraries" don't exist, yet the list says they're the tenth-largest system in the country with 11,189,036 volumes. It also says they're administered by Columbia University (which was called King's College in colonial times) even though it separately ranks Columbia's libraries at no. 8 with 12,200,000 volumes. These figures appear to describe Columbia's holdings in two different years, or perhaps from sources which count differently, but the list cites the same 2008 source (http://www.arl.org/stats/annualsurveys/arlstats/arlstats08.shtml) for both of them. That source says Columbia had precisely 11,189,036 volumes and doesn't list a 12,200,000-volume total for any collection. It also doesn't list "Kings College Libraries" at all.

I thought about re-naming the Kings College entry and deleting the one which currently says Columbia, but chose not to in case someone else sees a better approach. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.4.239.249 (talk) 18:11, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * As of today, the Columbia University Libraries "About Us" page says it has 13 million volumes.  and I see nothing on the website to indicate that "Kings College Libraries" should be considered a separate system. I'm going to remove Kings College from the list, which will unfortunately leave it with only 99 entries.  Someone should bite the bullet and buy the latest ARL statistics (2015-2016)  and update this list, a large part of which is sourced to the 2007 edition. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:27, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually it looks like there were 102 entries, so removing Kings College left 101 -- unless I'm missing something, but I check the numbering 3 times. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:41, 23 December 2018 (UTC)