For the second year running, Lane Cove Library lends more items per resident than any other library in NSW. If you are not currently a Library member, July 2026 is the month to join.
Lane Cove Library is encouraging locals to join up and everyone who signs up for a new membership in July at any Lane Cove Library branch will go into the draw to win a special prize pack.
Prize winners will be announced in the August library newsletter.
The Library is also opening its doors for a Library Open Day on 30 July 2026 to show residents why it is the top lending library in NSW as part of the Open Doors, Open Books, Open Minds event. This is a coordinated statewide Library Open Day, delivered by the NSW Public Libraries Association and the State Library of NSW during Library and Information Week.
The campaign aims to increase visibility and understanding of library services, strengthen advocacy, and grow membership by welcoming new audiences and highlighting the many ways libraries support their communities.
Why is Lane Cove Number One?
In FY2024/25, the Lane Cove Library lent 11.91 items per resident, the highest rate in New South Wales. Lane Cove’s per-capita borrowing rose from 11.43 in FY2023/24 to 11.91 in FY2024/25.
In raw counts, Lane Cove added 39 000 loans year-on-year.
Mosman was a close second at 11.69, with Woollahra, Willoughby and Inner West rounding out the top five.
Lane Cove, Mosman, Woollahra and Willoughby all have more than 10 loans per resident. The fifth spot, Inner West at 8.61, is a clear step down. The aggregate across all 91 NSW library services is 4.84 loans per resident.
By raw loan count, Lane Cove ranks 23rd of 91 NSW library services. That isn’t a fall from grace; it’s a function of council size. Inner West has 191,000 residents and lent 1.6 million items last year. Lane Cove has 57,000 residents and lent 674,000 items. The State Library uses the per-capita measure precisely because it compares like with like.
Mosman is the standout mover at the top of the table. They lifted raw loans by 16.6% and visits by 16.7% year-on-year, the kind of jump that doesn’t usually appear among councils already in the top five.
Lane Cove, Mosman, Woollahra and Willoughby all sit above 10 loans per resident, a tight cluster of inner-Sydney councils. The fifth spot, Inner West at 8.61, is a clear step down. The aggregate across all 91 NSW library services is 4.84 loans per resident.
By raw loans count, Lane Cove ranks 23rd of 91 NSW library services. That isn’t a fall from grace; it’s a function of council size. Inner West has 191,000 residents and lent 1.6 million items last year. Lane Cove has 57,000 and lent 674,000. The State Library uses the per-capita measure precisely because it compares like with like.
Mosman is the standout mover at the top of the table. They lifted raw loans 16.6 per cent and visits 16.7 per cent year-on-year, the kind of jump that doesn’t usually appear among councils already in the top five. Lane Cove grew on both, by less. The two libraries serve different communities at similar borrowing intensity.
Lane Cove Library Visits and Programmes
Lane Cove Library visits climbed 8.8% to 525,610, as counted by the State Library’s electronic gate sensors. Membership grew by 1,211 to 25,676.
The library ran 995 programmes, up from 926, pulling 25,539 attendees through the doors.
Programs span the full age spectrum: weekly Baby Bounce, Toddler Time, and Storytime for under-fives; school-holiday LEGO and craft workshops; technology classes and workshops for adults; and the annual Lane Cove Literary Awards, a national writing prize the library has run since 2014.
About a third of Lane Cove’s registered members live outside the LGA, 9,147 of the 25,676 total. The State Library reports non-resident members separately because they signal a library’s pull beyond its council boundary. The NSW median is 8.7 per cent non-resident membership; Lane Cove sits at 35.6 per cent. The rest is the central branch’s draw from neighbouring suburbs.
Last year’s format mix is worth a glance.
- About 60% of Lane Cove’s loans were books, including e-books
- 10% Non-book material like audiobooks and DVDs
- 9% were serials, including magazines and e-journals.
- 21% fell into “separate collections”, a State Library category that covers subscription online resources, from streaming music to genealogy databases
Lane Cove Council Funds the Library
In FY2024/2025, the Lane Cove Council spent $5.09 million on Library services, up nearly 10 % on the previous year.
That works out to $89.82 per resident, higher than the State Library’s NSW median of $66 but well shy of the top per-resident spenders (Woollahra at $150, Mosman at $146, City of Sydney at $117).
For context, the median NSW library lends 4.49 items per resident per year. Lane Cove is at 2.65 times that figure.
The service ran on 26.4 full-time-equivalent staff in FY2024/25, of whom 7 hold a formal library qualification. That’s flat on the 26.23 reported the year before. The library got busier without getting bigger.
Lane Cove Library, year-on-year
Every dial moved up from FY2023/24 to FY2024/25. Visits did the most heavy lifting.
Source: NSW State Library Public Library Statistics 2024/25.
Four Branches, One Borrowing Crown
The Lane Cove Library service has four sites:
- the central Library Square branch at 1 Library Walk,
- Greenwich Library
- St Leonards branch that opened in May 2023
- The Yarn at Hunters Hill, operated jointly with Hunters Hill Council.
The Library Square site has its own backstory. The Lane Cove Council Chambers opened there in 1924, and the building only became a library in 1962 when council moved across the road. It ticked over its centenary in 2024, the year before the library inside turned 70.
NSW Library Showdown
Top 50 NSW library services by loans per resident, FY2024/25. Tap a column to re-sort. Lane Cove highlighted.
Source: NSW State Library Public Library Statistics 2024/25.
The Library That Made Us
The numbers only tell half of it. In a recording for the State Library's Share Your Story project, two former students, Dani and Kat, call Lane Cove Library "the library that has made us". One describes spending "many, many years of my student life at Lane Cove Library, taking me all the way through high school and a six-year uni degree", always trying "to get a seat by the window".
They remember the pizza nights the library laid on for Year 12s, the priority it gave stressed students who could not study at home, and the late-night study sessions where an HSC marker came in to help. Recently graduated, they are looking forward to coming back "more for pleasure". "We love Lane Cove Library."
Data appendix: Download the FY2024/25 source spreadsheet (Excel, 14 KB). Contents: Lane Cove year-on-year, NSW top 50 per capita, Lane Cove format mix, and the full source list.
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Image credit: "Interior of Lane Cove Library" by Nick-D via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Used unmodified.
This article was written by Anthony El-Khoury as an unpaid contributor. Data collection, analysis, and visualisations were completed with the assistance of AI, with all claims checked against the cited sources. The views expressed are his own and not those of his employer.