Interpretation

Physical library engagement includes visiting a public library building or mobile library in-person during leisure time, being visited by a home library service and using another library outreach service (for example attending a community event where the library staff or volunteers were present).

Confidence intervals can be displayed on the bar chart by selecting the ‘Options’ button. These help show that differences between similarly ranked geographies may not be statistically significant.

The Community and Engagement Survey (CES) is a survey of people aged 16 and over in England, designed to explore how people across England engage with their community and with culture, media and live sport. In October 2025, the Community and Engagement Survey replaced DCMS’ Participation Survey and Community Life Survey.

The data has been weighted to compensate for differences in both sampling probability and response probability. Please see the weighting methodology for further details.

Get the data

You can download this dataset in an XLSX, CSV or CSVW format, or download all available datasets in an XLSX or JSON-Stat format.

The original source data for this indicator can be found on the following page: Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport(opens in a new tab).

Information on the strengths and limitations of the Explore Local Statistics service and methods used is available in the quality and methodology information (QMI) report.

Other indicators

Visited a public library is one of 109 local indicators on the Explore local statistics service. See the full list of local indicators.