Although the library is an element of cultural infrastructure with a community role, the accessibility of active public libraries has been on an accentuated negative trend, especially in the last 15 years. Dozens of libraries are closed every year, which reduces the population’s access to culture and education.

This section focuses on the population and interactively illustrates the dynamics in each county of the percentage of people with access to a public library in their locality, during the period 1995-2022, with 3-year intervals.

The information can be filtered by development region, and thus the graph offers the possibility to visually compare the evolutions of the counties within the same development region.

The thickness of the evolution line is directly proportional to the percentage of the county population without access to an active public library in the locality in 2022. The more people did not have access to the library in 2022, the thicker the county evolution line is.

The counties with the lowest percentage of access in each region were highlighted. In the background, the evolution lines for the other counties can also be observed, and can be emphasized by clicking / tapping or by hovering the cursor over them.

Points of analysis:

• In 1995, in 38 of the 41 counties, over 90% of the population had access to an active public library in the locality of residence.
• In 2022, in only 5 of the 41 counties, over 90% of the population had access to an active public library in the locality of residence.
• When comparing 1995 and 2022, as far as the population’s access to the library is concerned, the biggest drops are recorded in the following counties:
  • Teleorman – 52%
  • Vrancea – 40%
  • Bihor – 36%
  • Mures – 35%
  • Bistrița Năsăud – 32%
  • Mehedinti – 32%
  • Timiş – 32%

This section illustrates citizens’ level of access to the active public library in the locality, in 2022. The data can be explored with the help of an interactive table divided into three sections:

1. Total population with and without access, by county and region
2. Rural population with and without access, by county and region
3. Urban population with and without access, by county and region

Navigation between these sections is done from the top-left arrow button. Each section has several pages navigable using the button below the table, in order to view information about all the counties of the country.

The table can be ordered by any column by clicking / tapping on the column title. Also included in the upper left is a search field for quickly identifying and selecting a specific region or county.

Points of analysis:

• Relative to the population of the entire country, 4.2 million (22%) of the citizens live in a locality without an active public library – up by 4% compared to 2021. Of these, 3.73 million people live in rural areas, and 0.47 million live in urban areas.
• The access to the local public library is considerably lower in the rural areas: in 21 counties, over 40% of the rural population does not have access to an active public library in the locality of residence, and in 6 of these counties the percentage is even higher than 65%. In these 21 counties, there are approximately 2.5 million people living without access to an active public library in their residence locality.