Our mission is to promote reading and guide learning in the pursuit of information, knowledge, and wisdom.

We accomplish this mission through services to the public, including Summer Reading Clubs, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes, free access to extensive databases and much, much more.

Consequently, our library is one of the most-used library systems in the country. It consistently ranks at the top of its class. The ranking is based on such categories as circulation of materials, customer visits per hour and number of volumes owned per capita. Last year, customers borrowed more than 16 million items, made 8.2 million visits to the library and asked 1.2 million reference questions.

Columbus Metropolitan Library includes the Main Library, Outreach Services Division and 20 branches conveniently located throughout Franklin County. CML also jointly operates the Northwest Library in cooperation with Worthington Libraries. Southwest Public Libraries and Worthington Libraries also share resources with CML.