RA FOR ALL...THE ROAD SHOW!

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Tuesday, January 24, 2023

2022 Year in Review: Sales vs Library Checkouts

In preparation for my annual year in review presentation for PCI webinars next week, I have been compiling, comparing and contrasting data from across the book atmosphere.* The slides, which include  many useful links, will be available to all on January 31st but today I thought I would give you a preview of the difference between what books are checked out the most at the average library vs what books sell the most.

You can click here for the article in PW analyzing the top 25 selling print books according to BookScan which includes the below graphic of those titles. But please, click through because the narrative is extremely useful.

I have also looked at checkout data from 5 library systems (specifics in the slides next week) in order to see where the overlap is and is not. Again, I will talk about that more next week, but in the meantime, I also have this article crunching the data of all of the libraries who use Synthetics Unbound. There is a list and some commentary at this link, as well as access to a fun time-lapsed look at checkout stat from Jan 1-Dec 31. Click here or see the embedded image below.

As I said above, I will have even more for you on 1/31, but I thought this was a good place to start assessing 2022. Data is rolling out every day this month and each nugget helps us understand the leisure reading landscape a bit better.

*Credit Robin Bradford for the term "book atmosphere."

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