Iowa City Public Library - Collections, Services and Staff

Collections, Services and Staff

ICPL maintains a popular collection that spans the entire range of the Dewey Decimal classification system. The Library holds roughly 175,000 circulating print books, 36,000 non-print items, 6700 Reference materials (print and electronic), and 520 newspapers and periodicals. Fiction and nonfiction items are held in many formats besides print, including downloadable eBooks, eAudiobooks, CD and DVD. Popular areas of the collection include children's items, new fiction and mysteries, the movie and TV collection, video games, biographical materials, the Art-to-Go prints, and gardening, cooking and travel books and videos.

In addition to the items in the collection, the Library offers many other services to its patrons: various types of audiovisual equipment can be checked out, there are five meeting rooms that can be booked by the public, study space for young adults and general-use study rooms, a large children's room with computers and story time area, forty-two internet/database computers, free wireless Internet throughout the building, Channel 10 (ICPL's local Public-access television cable TV channel that shows recorded programming), and a wide variety of programming for adults and children. Outside of the Library's downtown location, it provides and maintains eighteen outreach collections at various community, youth and senior centers in the area.

In 2009, the Library reached a milestone of 1,500,000 circulations, making it the busiest public library in Iowa.

ICPL employs over 100 full, part-time and hourly workers, and has over 430 volunteers that perform a wide variety of tasks. It is governed by a nine-member Board of Trustees which is appointed by the Iowa City City Council. The Library's Director is Susan Craig.