Québec public-library visits rose 5% in 2024 but stayed below pre-pandemic levels

Québec public libraries recorded more than 25 million visits in 2024, up five per cent from 2023, according to new data from the Institut de la statistique du Québec.

Libraries also reported more than 52 million loans, a 0.2 per cent increase. Despite those gains, visits remained 11 per cent below the average recorded from 2015 to 2019, while loans were 13 per cent lower than the pre-pandemic average.

The provincial statistics agency said 97 per cent of Québec’s population had access to a public library in 2024. Registered users represented 27 per cent of the population served.

Programming continued to expand. Public libraries held 88,228 activities, 10 per cent more than in 2023 and one per cent above the pre-pandemic average. Those activities drew 1.6 million participants, six per cent more than a year earlier but still below the pre-pandemic average of 1.7 million.

The release puts total public-library revenue at $580 million in 2024 and operating expenditures at $470 million. The figures provide province-wide context for municipal library planning across Montréal and the West Island, but they do not break out individual local branches in the release.

Source

• Institut de la statistique du Québec: Public-library attendance in 2024, October 19, 2026.

Illustrative image. Photo by Tu Tram Pham on Unsplash; cropped and resized. It is not a photograph of a specific Québec library.