This is super cool (yes, nerd alert, but still…cool!)
This post from the Atlantic: Every Library and Museum in America, Mapped.
Here’s a quote:
If you have ever felt overwhelmed by the ubiquity of McDonald’s, this stat may make your day: There are more public libraries (about 17,000) in America than outposts of the burger mega-chain (about 14,000). The same is true of Starbucks (about 11,000 coffee shops nationally).
“There’s always that joke that there’s a Starbucks on every corner,” says Justin Grimes, a statistician with the Institute of Museum and Library Services in Washington. “But when you really think about it, there’s a public library wherever you go, whether it’s in New York City or some place in rural Montana. Very few communities are not touched by a public library.”
Grimes used the IMLS’ database of public libraries to create a monster map of ALL of the libraries in the use (click on link above) for the National Day of Civic Hacking.