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Libraries · Cityscape

Each person Calgary Library serves borrows 12.7 items, more than at 82% of Alberta’s town libraries

Cityscape is served by Calgary Library, the library of all of Calgary, so the figures here are the city’s, for 1,285,711 people. In 2022 it logged 3.8 visits for every person it serves. Alberta’s open library statistics stop at 2022, so these are its 2022 figures.

BCivic life#85 of 474 in Alberta
Visits a year
4,909,275
3.8 per person served
Borrowed a year
16,347,892
12.7 per person served
Cardholders
58%
750,719 cards
Charities
1,993
1.2 per 1,000 residents
Civic life grade

What Cityscape’s civic life grade weighs

Civic life in Cityscape grades B: #85 of the 474 towns graded in Alberta. All three civic life inputs exist for Cityscape: library visits per resident, charities per 1,000 residents and the provincial volunteering rate.

B
Civic lifeA character grade: shown, never part of Cityscape’s overall grade.

Informal groups and mutual aid go uncounted.

Sources: provincial statistics, the CRA, Statistics Canada.

Places to belong

Calgary mailing addresses hold 1,993 registered charities

There is no count for Cityscape on its own: the charities are those of all of Calgary. It works out to 1.2 per 1,000 residents, where the typical Alberta town has 1.3 and Canada’s 1.4. The CRA files each charity under its mailing address, so a service town collects its region’s charities and a suburb or rural municipality few.

Volunteering

37.1%

In 2023, 37.1% of people in Alberta volunteered formally: one estimate for the whole province, likely between 35.1% and 39.2%, in a range of 25.2% to 40.3% across the ten provinces.

Statistics Canada, table 45-10-0039.

How it compares

Ahead of most of Alberta’s town libraries on all 3 measures

Per person served, against the 118 town libraries in Alberta’s 2022 statistics.

Visits per person served 3.8 visits · typical 3.6Higher than 54%
Loans per person served 12.7 items · typical 8.1Higher than 82%
Cardholders 58% of people served · typical 20%Top 10%
Fewer per personMore per person
Who is compared

Town libraries only; regional systems left out.

A year at the library

About 13,450 visits a day

The year 2022 at Calgary Library, in the library’s own counts.

4,909,275
in-person visits
3.8 per person served
16,347,892
items borrowed
12.7 per person served
750,719
cardholders
58% of people served
Every week94,409visits
Every day44,789items borrowed
1,285,711 people served
Nearest libraries

The nearest library is 1.6 km from Cityscape

Nearest first, measured in a straight line from the centre of Cityscape.

How to read these numbers

What this data can and can’t tell you

  • Library locations. The map joins OpenStreetMap with Statistics Canada’s 2020 cultural facilities list and leaves out school, college and private libraries.

Questions about the library and civic life in Cityscape

Does Cityscape have a public library?

Not within Cityscape itself: the closest is Calgary Public Library - Prototype: Skyview, in Redstone.

How busy is Calgary Library?

4,909,275 in-person visits and 16,347,892 items borrowed in 2022.

Library statistics: Alberta public library statistics, 2022. Library locations: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) and Statistics Canada, Open Database of Cultural and Art Facilities (2020). Charities: Canada Revenue Agency, List of charities (2024), charitable organizations only.

Adapted from Statistics Canada (Census of Population 2021, population estimates 2025, 2021 census boundaries) under the Statistics Canada Open Licence; this does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada. Neighbourhood names in some cities © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).