Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

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Financial Data

Public Libraries Survey

Public libraries are particularly reliant on government funding for their operation, with 93% of their total income of $839.0m in 2003-04 coming from this source. The total expenses of public libraries in 2003-04 were $852.8m, of which $447.7m (53%) were labour costs. Other major expenses were purchases of library materials, and repairs and maintenance.

10.9 Income and Expenses of Public Libraries - 2003-04
			Local libraries	National and state libraries	All public libraries
			$m	$m	$m
Income
	Government funding
		Federal and state/territory	106.6	259.4	366.0
		Local	415.2	-	415.2
		Total	521.9	259.4	781.2
	Income from services to clients		18.3	12.0	30.3
	Other income(a)		5.0	18.0	23.0
	Total income(b)		545.2	293.7	839.0
Expenses
	Labour costs		340.8	106.9	447.7
	Telecommunication services		10.9	4.0	15.0
	Repair and maintenance expenses		20.6	9.5	30.1
	Purchases of library materials		47.8	8.2	56.0
	Other expenses(c)		125.1	129.3	254.4
	Total expenses(b)		545.2	307.6	852.8
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
(a) Includes other income such as fundraising, sales of goods, etc.
(b) Components may not add to totals as some components include data which is not available for publication but has been included in totals unless otherwise indicated.
(c) Includes other expenses such as subscription payments, freight, etc.
Source: Public Libraries, Australia, 2003-04 (cat. no. 8561.0).

The eight national and state archives were also highly dependent on government funding with $97.9m of their total $109.1m income coming from this source in 2003-04. An additional $10.4m came from services to clients. The total expenses of these archives was $107.0m with the greatest expense item being labour costs ($46.3m).


Cultural Funding Survey

According to (ABS, 2011d) Cultural Funding by Government, Australia, 2009-10 (cat. no. 4183.0), the Australian Government provided $66.6m towards funding for public libraries in 2009-10, while state and territory government contributed $347.6m. Archives received $89.6m from the Australian Government in 2009-10, and a further $62.2m from state and territory government.

The majority of funding for libraries, however, is from local government, with libraries receiving $759.3m in 2009-10, a 4% increase from 2008-09 ($730.3m).

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