Ministry of Culture

The jurisdiction of the Ministry in the field of libraries is:

To draft legislation and develop draft policy planning documents regulating the sector of libraries;
To ensure implementation of policy of the library sector in the libraries and state agencies subordinate to the Ministry;
To cooperate with the libraries of Latvia, their founders, public organizations of the libraries and Latvian Library Council;
To carry out registration of libraries, organize the accreditation of libraries and to issue accreditation documents;
To cooperate with the governing institutions of libraries and libraries of other countries as well as international library organizations.

General information on the libraries of Latvia

The total number of libraries: 1831 (including school libraries)
77 303 279 units (including school libraries).
The total number of registered users: 1 102 934 (including school libraries)
Number of visits: 19 060 451 (including school libraries)
Delivery: 28 059 782 (including school libraries)
The library services encompass all activity fields and all age groups of the population. From the total number of the population of Latvia more than 49 % have registered as active library users. Each user has attended a library on average 17 times per year and received on average 45 books and other editions. There is one library per 1222 inhabitants, each having at their disposal on average 34 books and other editions. In the libraries there is 3702 computer for the staff and 7984 computers for the library users.
The following libraries operate in Latvia:
1 National Library of Latvia
1 National Academic Library
829 public libraries:
including 857 municipal libraries including Latvian Library for the Blind with 7 branch libraries
38 specialized libraries
52 libraries of higher educational establishments
910 libraries of general education and vocational education establishments.

Latvijas Republikas Kultūras ministrija