Free tier — 500 requests/month, no credit card

US Public Library Data,
One API Call Away

Look up any US public library by address or coordinates. Get hours, services, collections, programs, and finance data — built on the federal IMLS Public Libraries Survey. No scraping. No 50-state portal hunting.

One account works on all three civic APIs:districtapi.devlibraryapi.devpublicsafetyapi.dev

Request
curl "https://api.libraryapi.dev/v1/outlets?address=14901+Dale+Evans+Pkwy+Apple+Valley+CA&radius_miles=10" \
  -H "X-API-Key: lk_live_your_api_key"
Response200 OK
{
  "data": [
    {
      "outletId": "CA0109-004",
      "name": "Newton T. Bass Apple Valley Branch Library",
      "outletType": "branch",
      "distanceMiles": 0.14,
      "hours": { "annualHours": 1520, "weeksOpen": 52 },
      "service": { "squareFootage": 19412 },
      "parentSystem": {
        "fscsId": "CA0109",
        "name": "San Bernardino County Library"
      }
    }
  ],
  "meta": { "creditsUsed": 1, "creditsRemaining": 499 }
}

Up and running in minutes

01

Get your free API key

Create an account in under a minute. No credit card required. 500 requests/month free, forever.

Sign up free →
02

Pass an address or coordinates

Send any US street address or lat/lng. We handle geocoding and spatial lookup against all 17,586 library outlets nationwide.

03

Get library data back

Hours, services, collections, programs, finance figures, and the parent library system — all in one clean JSON response.

Read the docs →

Everything you need about US public libraries

Killer feature

Address → Nearest Library

Pass any US street address and get back the public library outlets closest to it. Spatial lookup against all 17,586 IMLS-surveyed outlets with distance in miles.

All tiers

Full outlet profile

Hours open per year, weeks open, square footage, service programs, internet terminals, and meeting room availability — everything the IMLS collects, in one response.

All tiers

Collection data

Physical books, audio materials, video materials, e-books, and e-audio counts for every outlet and system. Track collection size over time as IMLS data updates.

All tiers

Finance & programs

Total revenue, operating expenditures, salaries, capital outlay, and program counts per library system. Build funding comparisons, per-capita analysis, and grant tools.

All tiers

State & system summaries

Aggregate counts by state or library system: total outlets, hours, visits, circulation, and budget. One call returns a full state-level picture.

Developer-friendly

FSCS-native IDs

All library systems and outlets are keyed by FSCS IDs — the same identifiers used by every federal library dataset, making cross-referencing straightforward.

Pricing

Start free. No credit card required. Upgrade when you need more.

Free
$0/mo
500 / mo
10 req/min
Get started
Starter
$19/mo
10,000 / mo
60 req/min
Get started
Most popular
Pro
$79/mo
50,000 / mo
120 req/min
Get started
Growth
$249/mo
200,000 / mo
300 req/min
Contact us

All endpoints on all tiers. Monthly limit resets on the 1st.

All 3 APIs · save up to 31%

Bundle libraryapi.dev with districtapi.dev and publicsafetyapi.dev. From $49/mo across all three.

See bundle pricing →

Common questions

What counts as one request?
Each call to any API endpoint uses one credit — whether it's an outlet lookup, library system profile, or state summary. The /v1/health endpoint does not consume credits.
What happens when I hit 500 requests?
On the free tier, requests over 500 return a 402 error until your quota resets on the 1st of the month. On paid tiers, requests over your monthly limit return a 402 until the next billing cycle. Upgrade anytime from your dashboard.
Is this really free federal data?
Yes. All data is sourced from the IMLS Public Libraries Survey — a federal census of all public libraries in the US, published annually. Public domain. The value we add is normalization, geocoding, spatial indexing, and a clean REST API.
When is data updated?
IMLS publishes PLS data annually, typically in late summer. We currently serve FY 2023 data. New releases are loaded within a week of IMLS publication.
Do you have an SLA?
The Growth plan includes a 99.9% uptime SLA. All tiers run on AWS Lambda + API Gateway with Cloudflare in front — the same infrastructure used by applications serving millions of requests.