Page History

There are two areas to complete:  Focus Area and Service Area

Focus Area is the geographic area served by the library, usually a city, town, county, state, or ZIP code. For most libraries, this would be the geographic area served by the Legal Service Area Population (or Population Served). The following formats are supported:

• Zip code, e.g., 93203
• State, e.g., CT
• City, State, e.g., Delta, UT
• County, State, e.g., Broward County, FL

Usually the library's Focus Area and Service Area are the same. In those cases, leave Service Area empty so that data in the Focus Area will apply. If a library provides its services to those outside their Legal Service Area Population (or Population Served), this additional geographic area could be added to the Service Area.

Some libraries are expected to provide service to a region larger than their focus area. For example, the New York Public Library has a focus area covering three of the boroughs of New York City (The Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island), but its service area covers the entire state of New York.

Best practice for most libraries is to use CITY, ST or COUNTY, ST in Focus Area, and to leave Service Area empty.