purple motes

While now largely forgotten, rental libraries (commercial circulating libraries) have played a major role in book distribution in twentieth-century U.S.  The Booklovers Library, a rental library that Seymour Eaton started in Philadelphia in 1900, rapidly established rental outlets in 50 cities and circulated millions of books per year.   Eaton soon proposed placing 10,000 rental book kiosks in locations across the U.S. in what he called the Tabard Inn Library.   However, poor financial management across a wide variety of enterprises forced him into bankruptcy in 1905. Eaton was far from the only person to venture into the rental library business by the beginning of twentieth century.  The Boston City Directory listed 10 rental libraries in 1900.  Many others undoubtedly also existed elsewhere.

The number of rental libraries probably peaked in the mid-1930s.  Rental libraries listed in the Boston City Directory held steady in number through the mid-1920s, and then rose sharply to 40 rental libraries in 1932-1933.  A person highly knowledgeable about the book business noted in 1934 that rental libraries had grown rapidly from 1929-1934 and that "now the whole nation is renting books."[1]   Lawrence Hoyt, the founder of Waldenbooks, now part of the Borders Group, established a rental library in 1933.   While Hoyt expanded to 250 rental locations in 1948 and continued in the book-rental business through 1964, the total number of rental libraries seems to have declined after the mid-1930s.[2]  The number of rental libraries listed in the Boston City Directory was only 14 in 1945 and 3 in 1954.  Industry observers noted a major contraction in the book-rental business in the 1950s and 1960s.[3]  Book rental still occurs in some small, independent bookstores and through vigorously competing online book-rental services.  Countries such as India, which have lower average incomes and higher population densities, are more propitious locations for book-rental services than is the U.S. today.

In the mid-1930s, U.S. rental libraries probably circulated more than half as many books as did public libraries.  The 1935 Census of Business recorded 932 rental libraries averaging $2,966 in yearly book-rental receipts.  About 1935, the most common price for renting popular fiction was  $0.15 for three days' rental.[4]   Hence a high-side estimate for the average cost of a book rental is $0.25.  At this price, the rental libraries reported in the Census had book circulation of 11 million.   Public libraries, in contrast, had circulation of about 415 million books in 1935.[5]

Actually rental library circulation in 1935 was much higher than the Census indicates.  The Census missed a large number of rental libraries.  In 1936, the editor of Publishers' Weekly, in consultation with two of the largest book wholesalers, "estimated that there were between forty and fifty thousand rental libraries in operation 'including deposit stations' and that independent libraries were probably a quarter of that total."[6]   Another apparently authoritative source declared in 1939 that "various rental library companies [reach] from 35,000 to 40,000 outlets."[7]  In 1949, a date probably past the peak of rental libraries, another highly knowledgeable source declared:

About half of the 3,041 [book] stores noted above also have rental libraries, their quality, not doubt, varying with the size and quality of the stores.

There are probably more than fifty thousand other rental libraries in the United States, not counting those itinerants who visit offices and homes with bags of rental books and whose business, some say, is "surprisingly large," whatever that may mean.  Most of the fifty thousand libraries are controlled by ten big chains.  The best libraries are said to be those run by the Walden Book Company; the largest chain is probably that of the American Lending Library Company, which has approximately ten thousand "outlets."[8]

The rental libraries that the Census omitted could not have been much smaller than those that the Census included. The rental libraries included in the Census had only about 1.5 full-time-equivalent employees per library.  Moreover, a book entitled How to Run a Rental Library (published in 1934) had a table entitled "Tentative Monthly Budget for Small Library and Bookshop with Gross Sales from $3,000 to $20,000 per Year."[9] The average annual revenue per rental library recorded in the Census was only $3,261, of which $2,966 was for book rentals ("admissions and fees" category of receipts).   If 20,000 rental libraries on average similar to those reported in the Census existed in 1935, then the total circulation of these rental libraries was 237 million.   If the number of rental libraries was greater than 20,000, the average rental price lower than $0.25, or average rental-library book-rental receipts higher than $2,966, then total rental-book circulation would be even higher.   Even under relatively conservative parameters, book circulation from rental libraries was greater than half of public libraries total circulation.[10]

U.S. information industries historically have had considerable diversity in organization, funding, and operational models.   Government printing operations have always been a significant part of the U.S. printing business.  Non-commercial civic organizations founded more than half of the libraries that began operations prior to 1876 within the geographic U.S.   As late as 1900, the number of civic-organization (social) libraries was about as large as the number of government-sponsored (public) libraries.    Across the twentieth century, public libraries expanded their lending activities by lending commercially booming non-book media such as piano rolls, records, and videos.   Late in the twentieth century, public libraries' video lending operations grew faster than commercial video rentals.   Nonetheless, public libraries' video loans in 2004 amounted to only 12% of commercial video rentals.  Public libraries in 1935 circulated less than twice as many books as did commercial rental libraries.  Overall, public and commercial library activities were more similar in magnitude in 1935 than they are today.

Considerable diversity in organization, funding, and operational models is emerging for the provision of broadband communications networks.   That's not a historically unprecedented development.

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Here are the rental library statistics for 1935 from the Census of Business, along with related data and calculations.

Update: In response to a SHARP-L query I made about rental libraries in Germany, Bernhard Wirth helpfully documented some key facts:

In "LGB 2" (Lexikon des gesamten Buchwesens) there are given two figures: In 1950 there existed 13,000 rental libraries (ref.: Branchenverzeichnis der deutschen Bundespost); in 1933 there existed 2758 rental libraries with holdings of 20 million volumes and some 720 millions of circulations.

In "Lexikon des Bibliothekswesens" (2.ed., ed. by H. Kunze et al.; Leipzig 1974) there is given a figure for the year 1953: in Western Germany rental libraries there have been 600 million circulations, which should be twenty times the circulation figure of the municipal public libraries.

In the "Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1964" there is given the number of circulations in municipal public libraries in 1962 (in W-Germany): 42.5 million circulations. Unfortunately there's no number for the rental libraries.

Update 2:  An additional way to measure rental libraries is their share of book sold.  Baker & Taylor Co, a U.S. trade book wholesaler, tracked in 1933 "13,991 copies of fifty representative book titles bought by forty-eight stores.  Of these, 9,586 copies were resold and only 4,405 were put in rental libraries."  Of 878 books tracked in 1934, 345 out of 878 were put into rental libraries.  The share of books sold to rental libraries thus averaged about half of total book sales in Baker & Taylor Co.'s reported samples, 1933-1934.  The share undoubtedly varied significantly by book type.   The Mystery Writers of America complained in 1945 that "a sale of 20,000 is exceptional for a mystery, but 12,000 of those are sold to rental libraries and read by 50 to 100 persons with no royalty benefits to the author."  The 1934 Baker & Taylor Co. data showed 28 rentals per book  on average.  Sources: "Book Notes," New York Times, Apr. 18, 1933, p 13; --, New York Times, June 1, 1934, p 21; Trudi McCullough, "Writers Claim Crime Doesn't Pay -- Enough," The Washington Post, Sept. 23, 1945, p. S5.

Update 3: Commercial circulating libraries (rental libraries) were also prevalent in England in the 1930s and 1940s.  In England in the 1930s, the typical rental charge for a book was two pence per week, with no deposit.  Allied Libraries, a Manchester-based firm, grew as a chain of rental libraries in the post-WWII period to a peak in March, 1962 of 1,489 agencies (rental libraries) and 362,000 books hired out.  The average size of Allied Libraries' rental libraries was 400 volumes.   See Patricia M. Long, "The commercial circulating library in the 1970s," Library History, v. 5, n. 6 (1981) pp. 185-93, esp. pp. 186, 187.

Notes for main post:

[1] Conklin (1934) p. 11. In 1932, Simon & Schuster introduced "Novel Novels".  These were "fiction selected and bound particularly for use in rental libraries The sole purpose of these books, the publishers say, will be to entertain, their celophane wrappers will be sealed to the binding and they will be specially bound, with reinforced backs."  They also were to be produced with attractive colored covers.  The first two books published under the Novel Novels brand were Bourke Lee's Blonde Interlude and C.C. Nicolet's Death of a Bridge Expert.  "Book Notes," New York Times, June 20, 1932, p. 12.  Conklin (1934), p. 15, summarized requirements for success in the rental-library business:

A practical business attitude, and, if possible, experience; capital sufficient for the chosen type of library; a love and knowledge of books -- these are the requirements.  To them should be added a knack of judging people themselves, for a rental library is one of the best laboratories in applied psychology.  The librarian is a friend to the world; and you will need patience, acumen, and insight into individual minds, if you wish to attract a permanent clientele.  You will need to possess the arts of a Machiavelli and the guile of the writer of an "Advice to the Lovelorn" column.

[2] Waldenbooks' early rental libraries were leased locations in department stores.  See Miller (2006) p. 45.

[3] Eppard (1986) p. 245 notes that industry attention to rental libraries waned after 1940.  Conklin (1954), p. 1818, dates the steep decline in the book-rental business to 1950-1951. "In and Out of Books", New York Times, June 9, 1963, p. 310, describes rental libraries as "that phenomenon of the depression thirties" and notes, "According to the A.B.A.'s [American Bookseller Association's] figures, there probably are about 3,500 rental libraries, a small fraction of those that existed 30 years ago."

[4] Conklin (1934) p. 56, Eppard (1986) p. 246.

[5] Estimates based on circulation data in Tables 1-3 in Galbi (2008).

[6] Eppard (1986) p. 244.  Id. notes that the American Booktrade Directory for 1935 listed 2,066 firms that rented books.   That's much lower than the other estimates, but still more than twice the number of rental libraries recorded in the Census of 1935.

[7] Deeck (2006), citing Charles S. Strong, "The Circulating Library Novel," published in The Writer's 1939 Handbook.  I have not been able to locate that original source.

[8] Miller (1949) p. 119.

[9] Conklin (1934) p. 91.

[10] U.S. public library circulation in 1935 was about 415 million. See above.   In 1940 in Melbourne, Australia,  rental libraries circulated about ten times as many books as did public libraries.  See Arnold (1987) p. 85.  Rassuli and Hollander (2001), p. 131-2, note that Johnson (1965), History of Libraries in the Western World, states that "German public libraries by 1962 circulated 50 million items (checkouts?), compared with 600 million for commercial libraries."  I join with id. in suggesting research on this claim.

References for main post:

Arnold, John. 1987. "‘Choose your author as you would choose a friend’: circulating libraries in Melbourne, 1930–1960."  The La Trobe Journal 10 (40): 77-96.

Conklin, Geoff. 1934.  How to Run a Rental Library.  Rahway, NJ: Bowker.

Conklin, Geoff. 1954. "Rental Libraries: Problems and Prospects -- Part I." Publishers' Weekly 165 (24 Apr): 1818.

Deeck, William F. 2006. Murder at 3 Cents a Day: An Annotated Crime Fiction Bibliography of the Lending Library Publishers: 1936-1967. Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

Eppard, Philip B. 1986. "The Rental Library in Twentieth-Century America." Journal of Library History 21 (1): 240-252.

Galbi, Douglas. 2008.  "Book Circulation Per U.S. Public Library User Since 1856." Public Library Quarterly. 27 (4): 351-371.

Miller, Laura J. 2006. Reluctant capitalists: bookselling and the culture of consumption. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Miller, William. 1949. The book industry; a report of the Public Library Inquiry. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.

Rassuli, Kathleen M., and Stanley C. Hollander. 2001. "Revolving, Not Revolutionary Books: The History of Rental Libraries until 1960". Journal of Macromarketing. 21: 123-134.

Offer Comments

Previously I estimated that, from 1985 to 2004, video circulation from U.S. public libraries grew 340%, compared to 140% growth in video rentals from video rental businesses. This estimate depended on a sub-estimate that video circulation from public libraries in 2004 was 15% of total library item circulation. Data that I did not previously consider suggest that video circulation from public libraries in 2004 was about 25% of book circulation, or about 20% of total library item circulation.[1] That figure implies a greater library video circulation growth advantage.  The revised circulation share implies that, from 1985 to 2004, video circulation from public libraries grew 9.2% a year, while video rentals from commercial outlets grew 4.4% per year.

Public libraries' comparative video circulation success occurred with a much slower transition from video cassettes to DVDs. The ratio of DVDs to video cassettes rented from commercial rental businesses was 1.1 in 2002 and rose to 12 by 2005. For a sample of 11 libraries, this ratio reached 0.9 only in 2005 (see Table below). A sample of about 275 library systems in 2005 had a ratio of DVDs to video cassettes of 1.3.[2] Libraries' video circulation shifted from a majority of video cassettes to a majority of DVDs about three years behind video rental stores' rentals.

Libraries' relatively fast growth in video circulation and late transition to DVDs suggests that video quality is less important than video selection and video price. Libraries may have offered borrowers videos, including video cassettes, not available at video rental businesses. Libraries also offered free borrowing, as compared to fee-per-selection at video rental businesses. Desire for DVD-quality video viewing apparently wasn't strong enough to shift a lot of video borrowing from libraries to video rental businesses.

Update: First paragraph revised to correct incorrectly defined, misleading numbers.

Notes:

[1] Molyneux (2007), reporting data from the Normative Data Project for Libraries, documents that for 11 libraries, video circulation (video cassettes and DVDs) in 2004 was 26% of book circulation. For 275 library systems in 2005, video circulation was 35% of book circulation in 2005, compared to 34% of book circulation for the 11-library sample in 2005. Molyneux (2007) p. 403 notes variation in reporting among the 275 libraries over time. That does not affect the ratio of reported figures at a given time.  These data suggest that 2o% is a reasonable estimate for 2004 for video circulation as a share of total library item circulation.

[2] The video rental data are from Adams Media Research, as reported in U.S. Entertainment Industry: 2006 Market Statistics, p. 28. The library statistics are from Molyneux (2007).

Reference:

Molyneux, Robert E. (2007) "Transitions: Library Circulation and Digital Formats," in The Bowker Annual 2007: Library and Book Trade Almanac, pp.402-6.

2 Comments

The rise of television in the U.S. in the 1950s did not greatly affect library book circulation. The share of households in the U.S. with television rose from 9% in 1950 to 87% in 1960. Over that same period, public library book circulation per person in libraries' service areas rose about 40%. While television looms large in much thinking about media, factors other than television were more important in driving library book circulation.

The rise of television probably reduced library book circulation in the 1950s about 20% relative to what it would have been without television. In a study published in 1963, Edwin Parker matched 14 communities in Illinois with similar population sizes, urban rural status, and public library book circulation. In one community in each pair, the share of television households rose from less than 10 percent to more than 70 percent from 1950 to 1953 (early TV sample). In the other community in the pair, that rise occurred between 1953 and 1958 (late TV sample). The patterns of library book circulation in the libraries' service areas is consistent with the rise in access to television accounting for a one-book reduction in library circulation per person per year (see table below). That's about 20% of circulation per person in 1958.

Audiovisual items are more significant to library book circulation today than the rise of television was. Circulation of audiovisuals currently accounts for about 25% of public library circulation. Substituting audiovisual borrowing for book borrowing involves changing a smaller scope of behavior than substituting watching television for borrowing items.

Reference:

Parker, Edwin B. (1963), "The Effects of Television on Public Library Circulation," The Public Opinion Quarterly, v. 27, n. 4 (Winter), pp. 578-589.

Offer Comments

From 1985 to 2004, video rentals from U.S. public libraries grew 340%. Over the same period, video rentals from U.S. commercial rental businesses grew 140%. Public libraries' video rental activity did grow from a smaller base: 70 million videos loaned in 1985 (6% of the number of videos commercial outfits turned in that year), to 300 million videos loaned in 2004 (12% of the number of videos rented commercially). The growth of video lending from public libraries has been amazing, and largely unnoticed.

Pricing is probably a large part of the explanation for this performance differential. The average price for commercially renting a video in 1985 was $2.38. The average price for borrowing a video from a public library in 1987 was $0.39 (30.4% of libraries charged for borrowing video, and those libraries charged an average of $1.29). In 2004, the average price for commercially renting a video was $3.43. The average price for borrowing a video from a library was then approximately zero. Lower price induces greater demand, and free (zero price) is a highly appealing price.

This video example does not depend on some of the factors thought to be producing the death of paid text content. From 1985 to 2004, there wasn't a proliferation of free video content on the web. I would guess that, overall, commercial video rental stores have a video inventory that most persons would value more highly than the video inventory of a library. Consumer may like free content. But video is quite expensive to consume. Given that the average video takes perhaps an hour and a half to watch, the higher inventory value of commercial video rental firms might have easily outweighed the lower video rental price from libraries. But it didn't.

Persons seem to have a high time-discount rate in content choices. The benefit of watching a relatively good video comes later than the cost of paying the rental fee. A high discount rate lowers the importance of the former, and raises the importance of the later. So perhaps a significant part of the challenge of making a paid content model work is delivering benefits soon relative to payments.

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The table below summarizes the facts. Subsequent notes describe the sources and estimates.

Update:  A better estimate of video share of U.S. library circulation in 2004 is 2o%.  That video circulation share implies that, from 1985 to 2004, video circulation from public libraries grew 9.2% a year, while video rentals from commercial outlets grew 4.4% per year.

Public library circulation: For 1985, interpolated from figures for 1983 (Goldhor (1995)) and 1990 (NCES/ALA). The Goldhor figures are given in Galbi (2007a). For 2004, figure from NCES.

Video share of public library circulation: Dewing (1988) presents results from a survey in early 1987 of about 3000 public libraries having video cassette collections. The survey received 841 valid responses. Id. p. 69, Table 6.19, gives average tapes loaned, by size of the community the public library served. The survey did not include data on total library circulation. Using NCES Public Library Statistics for 1987, I calculated average circulation per week for the four community size categories used in reporting the video survey results (less than 20,000; 20,001 to 50,000; 50,001 to 100,000; greater than 100,000). Average videos loaned were 18%, 7.5%, 7.7%, and 7.4% of average library circulation for the four community size categories, respectively. Responses in the smallest community size category may not have been representative of all small libraries in that category. Since the video survey addressed only public libraries having a video collection, the survey doesn't account for the zero circulation share in libraries that didn't have a video collection. For a conservative estimate of the growth rate, I estimate the 1985 video circulation share to be 6%. One small additional piece of evidence: In West Virginia about 1984, the Morgantown Public Library reported that video circulation accounted for more than 6% of annual circulation. See Caron (1984). The video share estimate for 2004 is based on the data in Galbi (2007b). While the data could support a higher estimate for the video share in 2004, I've used a rather low estimate to generate a conservative estimate of the growth rate.

Videos borrowed from public libraries: Calculated from library circulation and video share.

Video borrowing price from libraries: Dewing (1988) pp. 70-71 provides the data on prices for borrowing videos from libraries in 1987. Most libraries (73%) had a loan period of about a week. I roughly estimate the price in 1985 to be $0.50, and also roughly estimate the price in 2004 to be 0. The later estimate is based on the declining purchase price of videos and personal knowledge of library operations. Elgin (1992), p. 12, recorded that libraries that eliminated charges for borrowing videos experienced increased video borrowing.

Video rentals from video stores: From EMA, A History of Home Video and Video Game Retailing.

Video rental prices: EMA gives the 1985 average price. I calculated the 2004 average price from rental units and total rental revenue (Adams Media Research data).

American Library Association [ALA], Public Libraries in the United States Statistical trends, 1990-2003.

Caron, Barbara (Fall 1984), "Video Cassettes in the Public Library," West Virginia Public Libraries; cited in Elgin (1992) p. 6.

Dewing, Martha, ed. (1988), Home Video in Libraries (Boston, Mass.: Knowledge Industry Publications).

Elgin, Romona R. (1992), Comparison of Book and Video Circulation in Public Libraries, Student Report, Northern Illinois University, Department of Library and Information Studies.

Galbi, Douglas (2007a), Book Circulation Per U.S. Public Library User Since 1856, available at galbithink.org

Galbi, Douglas (2007b), "library users like audiovisuals," available on purplemotes.net.

Goldhor, Herbert (1985). A Summary and Review of the Indexes of American Public Library Statistics: 1939-1983. Library Research Center Report (Eric Document # ED264879). Urbana, IL, Illinois University.

National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], Public Libraries.

2 Comments

Digital forms and ubiquitous networks are greatly increasing opportunities to circulate authored symbolic works. Digitization projects are creating huge online libraries of digitized books that persons around the world can access at zero incremental cost. Storage prices are dropping so rapidly that one small device will soon be able to store all the music that most persons listen to throughout their lives. Video sharing sites are collecting and distributing large amounts of video across the Internet. Many persons can now easily create a huge library of digital works. How persons respond to vastly expanding access to works will significantly shape the communications industry.

To understand better the circulation of works, consider U.S. public-library users’ book-borrowing behavior since the mid-nineteenth century. Measured relative to the unskilled wage, the dime novels that Irwin Beadle began selling in 1860 were almost five times more expensive than the twenty-five cent paperbacks being sold in 1950. A lower real purchase price for books increased the incentive to purchase rather than borrow. Average time spent reading, according to the best available estimates, fell 50% from 1925 to 1995. Less time spent reading implies less demand for borrowing books.

Other factors probably pushed toward more borrowing. The number of books in print, and the number of books in libraries, increased immensely from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. Perhaps such a change encouraged persons to read a larger number of books less thoroughly, and hence favored borrowing books relative to purchasing books. Library users’ travel costs, in time and money, probably fell with improvements in transportation technology since the mid-nineteenth century. Lower travel costs reduce the total cost of borrowing books from a library.

Library book circulation per user has no strong, long-run trend. From 1856 to 1978, library users borrowed from U.S. public libraries about 15 books per user per year. From 1978 to 2004, book circulation per user declined approximately 50%. The growth of audiovisuals circulation, estimated at 25% of total circulation in 2004, accounts for about half of this decline. These figures depend on estimates and disparate samples of libraries with varying circulation and user accounting methods. Nonetheless, these figures are of sufficient quality to suggest that historically established institutions significantly stabilize borrowing behavior.

Users borrowing items from public libraries has plausible connections to a variety of institutions and values. Much of the pleasure from reading comes from discussing a book with friends who have also read the book. The desire to discuss books among friends may constrain the rate at which individuals will read books. At the same time, persons may value going to the library as an activity in itself. Borrowing library items may be in part a by-product of interest in those visits. On the supply side, libraries can counterbalance changing demand for books by shifting the distribution of book collections between popular and less popular works, by changing investments in promoting book borrowing, and by shifting collections from books to audiovisuals.

Media use that is connected to wider scope of behaviors and interests is likely to change more slowly. The shifts in music from vinyl records, to CDs, and then to digital downloads were format changes that required relatively small changes in behavior. Persons who read the same newspaper every morning while using the bathroom, or who watch a half-hour television news program every evening before dinner, have their media use connected to relatively stable patterns of life. Generational changes in patterns of life, rather than changes in relative prices, quality, or features, are more important for such media use. Established institutions, meaning both routine patterns of personal activity and indefinitely chartered organizations, can give media use considerable stability despite major changes in activity incentives and technological possibilities.

Note: Post edited and updated. For sources and data, see Book Circulation Per U.S. Public Library User Since 1856 (also on SSRN).

2 Comments

In 1914, books accounted for 74% of items circulated from the Cincinnati Public Library. Prints accounted for 13% of circulation, lantern slides, 6%, and music rolls, 3%.[1] The Cincinnati Public Library at this time was one of the largest and most lavish public libraries in the U.S. These statistics indicate the scope of services that a leading public library provided.

Data for U.S. public libraries in 1955 show less format concentration in holdings and greater concentration in circulation. Books comprised an estimated 67% of libraries' items and 94% of libraries' circulation. Photos, pictures, and prints, which made up 20% of items, accounted for only 2.2% of circulation. While sound recordings and films accounted for small shares of items and circulation, these formats had relatively rapid turnover in lending (see Table). A film was lent on average 13.3 times per year. A film could be viewed much more quickly (perhaps a half hour for films of this time) than a book could be read, and loan periods for films were probably much shorter than those for books. The ratio of circulation per item suggests considerable interest in viewing films in public libraries' collections.

Notes:

[1] Data from Papers and Proceedings of the Berkeley Conference of the American Library Association, July 1915, published in the ALA Bulletin, v. 9. The number of (book) volumes at the end of 1914 was 463,521. The source does not give item counts for the other formats. Total circulation for all formats was 2,164,310. A large number of piano rolls are available digitally here and here.

[2] Data from U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Biennial Survey of Education in the United States 1954-56, Chapter 5, Statistic of Public Libraries: 1955-56, Tables 9-13. The number of library systems reporting non-book items was only 26% of the number of systems reporting book volumes. I've scaled all reported figures by number of systems reporting. If systems reporting non-book items had larger than average non-book holdings, the non-book figures are over-estimates. Because nearly the same number of systems reported items and circulation, scaling matters little to the circ./item figures. For further analysis, see the underlying data for this table.

2 Comments

Sarah Ann Long, a former president of the American Library Association and currently director of NSLS, a library consortium in the northern suburban region of Illinois, recently noted public library users' interest in audiovisual materials:

In 2001, the NSLS conducted an informal survey of member public libraries and found that in a few libraries, loans of AV materials were about 40 percent of all loans. The same survey was just repeated and the numbers have grown. Many libraries now report that AV borrowing is in the 40 percent range. The Gail Borden Public Library in Elgin said that almost 57 percent of their loans were for AV materials and the Glencoe Public Library reported that AV accounted for 63 percent of all items borrowed.

Some libraries are adopting innovative collection management approaches to audiovisuals, such as having the library subscribe to Netflix.

National censuses of U.S. public libraries provide more comprehensive information on audiovisual materials in U.S. public libraries. Audiovisual materials as a percent of the number of book volumes in libraries’ collections have increased from about 3.5% in 1987 to 9.5% in 2004. The share of videos grew much faster than that of audios, with videos rising from 0.6% of book volumes in 1987 to 4.6% in 2004. Estimates based on cross-section variations in libraries' collections indicate that videos account for about 20% of libraries circulation in 2004, and audio and visual materials together (audiovisuals), about 35%. Thus the reported figures from northern Illinois appear to be representative of the situation in the U.S. as a whole. The popularity of audio and video materials compared to books is consistent with a variety of other evidence from the communications industry.

Public libraries' provision of audiovisual materials has received relatively little scholarly attention. The Library Media Project, which sought to foster the development of public libraries' video collections, recently expired. Nonetheless, public libraries have provided and are likely to continue to provide many services besides lending books.

Update: Some state library websites (search them here) provide data on audiovisuals circulation. The data I've found are in the table below. These data suggest that audiovisual circulation for libraries across the U.S. might be closer to 25% of total circulation in 2006.

6 Comments