Are there more libraries or McDonald’s?
A friend told me today that she had heard there are eight (8) libraries for every one (1) McDonald’s in the United States. I about fainted dead away. I said there’s no possible way that’s true — are you sure you don’t have it mixed up?
She said no.
So, I did some research. Try to guess which one of us was wrong. I’ll wait.
There are more libraries than McDonald’s
If you are you believe the American Library Association, and to me this is probably by definition the most trustworthy group of people ever to form an association, there are 119,487 libraries in the US. Let that sink in. That’s a tremendous number. I saw that and I thought “well… maybe there are 200,000 McDonald’s?”
There are 14,146. Way less. About 8.4 libraries for every pair of golden arches in a suburb. But why?
The libraries number is a bit misleading: that’s the total number of libraries of any kind. That’s schools, colleges, hospitals, law offices, research facilities, etc. Even still, when you limit it solely to public libraries and their branches, you get 16,536. That’s still 2k more than there are McDonald’s. That raises a lot of questions for me.
For example, why are we so badly read but still so fat?
If you think about the numbers above, for example, you are more likely to drive past a library on a given route than you are a McDonald’s. Not to mention, getting the books from the library is 100% absolutely free. Eating at McDonald’s not only costs you money, but it also costs you your health, your friends, your self-esteem, your ability to process nutrients appropriately, etc.
What does this mean?
I’m trying to decide if this is a stark commentary on society or if it’s just a stark commentary on me — I had no idea we had such great access to knowledge literally all over. If you figure you are never more than 10 minutes away from a Mickey-D’s, you can’t ever be more than about 11 feet from a library. In any case, a good rule of thumb is that you should read one book for every one burger you eat. How does that sound?
I have the general sense that most people don’t read books. But, I don’t know that for a fact, so let me do some quick research:
- 72 percent of Americans read a book in 2015. Source. It’s mostly women, though, 77% vs 67%.
- 90% of college grads read a book in the last year vs 34% of non-grads. Yikes.
- In 2012, only 6.7% of Americans read a single goddam poem. Source
- 74% of Americans are overweight. Source
- .02% of Americans publish a book every year. Source and Source.
Overall I am very discouraged now. I hope you are too.
