The Austrian library landscape is characterised by two different organisational forms:
Public libraries which are managed by full-time librarians, mostly larger institutions in cities and communities of middle-size on the one hand, and on the other hand libraries which are run by people holding honorary posts and which add to the relatively dense, area-wide net of this cultural institution in smaller communities and rural areas, but also in companies and social institutions.
As can be easily seen in the chart, the 287 full-time managed libraries provide performance data as follows:
They hold 52,7% of the media, attend to 56,6% of the users of public libraries and book 76,4% of all borrowings.
However, 287 locations would result in a rather thin net, which would be centring in areas where book-shops and other cultural institutions are accessible, namely in bigger towns.
Through the work of unsalaried employees in 1192 libraries, this net becomes a very densely knit net, which in relation to other institutions of extra-curricular vocational education, provides especially for fundamental reading promotion but can also offer access to modern media and the world-wide-web and also information of all kind in the local surroundings.
Very often, precisely these small libraries, managed by volunteers, offer the sole opportunity to choose books in a certain place.