Bedbugs in Libraries: Do you want to run that figure by me one more time?

Click here if you want to see what happens

when the bedbug bites.

Link to August 19 Cincinnati Enquirer article, "Local libraries struggle with bedbugs".

Excerpt: This summer the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County encountered its first unwanted pest. And, they're not alone. Libraries on both sides of the river are struggling with the pests. The Boone County library brings in a bedbug sniffing dog four times a year.

The downtown library hasn't had a problem. Bedbugs have cropped up in the Norwood branch; the department hit hardest by bedbugs is the Outreach Services, a program that distributed books to schools and senior citizens homes, Bannister said.

"When you have more than 600 million visitors each year, you're bound to encounter this kind of problem," said Amy Bannister, spokeswoman for the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.


Whoa, Nellie!  600,000,000 visitors annually?   Let's hope that Amy was misquoted here.

The 2008 Ohio Public Library Statistics (latest available online) has no column for 'library visits', but Public Libraries in the United States: Fiscal Year 2008, published by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, ranks Ohio #1 in 'library visits per capita' with 8.02.

Let's do the math.

The service population of the PLCHC is 806,652.

806,652 x 8.02 = 6,469,349.

A long way from 600,000,000.