Funding Public Libraries in Pennsylvania

Public libraries in the United States are funded in numerous ways including government funding, national, state. and local levels, other public funding from donations, and private funding through endowments and subscriptions. This study of one state, Pennsylvania, analyzes municipal support for local libraries through taxes."successful" libraries, agencies that command a relatively large share of the municipal tax pie as well as high per capita circulation were compared with a group of "less successful" libraries having little share of tax funds and lower circulation. Were demographic indicators measurable within the communities that would predict success? Comparisons were made between these two groups using t-tests on fourteen variables to see if the groups differed significantly on any of them. None of the mean values were significantly different at the 95 percent confidence level. "Success" is even more elusive than originally thought