RA FOR ALL...THE ROAD SHOW!

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Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Library Journal's 2020 Materials Survey

Annually, Library Journal has done a Materials Survey where they ask public libraries about their highest circulating materials. However, this year, they did things a bit differently, and as a result, the results are a bit different, and I would argue, more useful as a result.

As you can see here and below, instead of solely relying on reported survey results and circulation statistics, the study used purchases and BISAC codes to get a more nuanced look at the specifics.

Read it all for yourself here, but I was very intrigued by the differences. I was also impressed at how the data was explained in the article and the follow up questions that were pursued in order to get more detailed and useful information from the data. For example, libraries were asked in what areas they would buy more if more were available. One of the most popular answers was "Urban Fiction," an answer my travels support too.

I do have one concern about the use of BISAC codes in order to break down the genres though. Horror is not a BISAC code which is used appropriately by publishers. I learn this the hard way every year when I try to narrow down upcoming horror for my Library Journal genre spotlight article. Very few titles get labelled with the code of horror, even titles that are 100% horror. It is a "dirty" word in publishing still, and I cannot rely on it to identify horror at all. Every year I have to rely on using "horror" as a keyword search and then spend hours shifting through the results in order to find most of what I need.

Therefore, I am not surprised that there is no mention of horror in the Materials Survey at all, even though we know that interest and sales in the genre are up. Even though we know that libraries are buying more of it for all age levels. Even though we know that some of the "psychological thriller" growth that is noted in the article can be attributed to horror.

This is not the survey's fault, however. I am not insinuating that even a little. I just wanted to point out that when you read the Material Survey, to keep that in mind. And not just about horror; there are many reading areas which might not be accurately represented here. This article is great guide to what is most popular among public library patrons right now, but it is only a guide, not the final statement on what is most popular in every library in America.

Please take some time to read the Materials Survey and then think about the results with your specific population in mind. There are many collection development and RA Service implications that can be drawn from the Materials Survey, but those implications will take on a different form depending on the specifics of your library.

Click here for the entire article or read the introduction below before moving on:
As LJ’s materials survey grew too complex, we turned to vendor data for a granular look at what’s selling to libraries. 
When it launched in 1998, LJ’s annual materials survey of U.S. public libraries focused almost exclusively on the purchase and circulation of books. Over time, in response to readers’ needs, it expanded to include audiobooks, videos, downloadable and streaming media, music, electronic products, and ebooks. With that level of complexity, the survey was eventually streamlined to address circulation only. Even with the new focus, the proliferation of formats seems to have made participation too time-consuming for busy librarians, and this year saw an unusually small number of survey returns, rendering the results unrepresentative. As a result, we’re changing pace again and consulting with major vendors in the library market to provide a portrait of materials in U.S. public libraries. 
To discover what subjects are sparking interest in the public library today, we turned to Baker & Taylor (B&T) for sales in the print arena. (The statistics cited here reflect unit rather than dollar sales.) While LJ has relied on a select group of public libraries nationwide to complete its survey, B&T’s statistics represent more than 9,000 institutions and are hence broader. They are also more specific, as they are divided by BISAC code into more than 200 fiction and nearly 3,000 nonfiction genres, subgenres, and subsubgenres. 
According to B&T, mystery, thriller, romance, literary fiction, and women’s fiction were the top five print fiction subjects purchased by U.S. public libraries last year, in that order. That’s a somewhat different story from the one revealed over the last many iterations of LJ’s survey, where mystery, thriller, and romance have dominated but general fiction ranked among the top two or three hot subjects. It’s ninth on B&T’s list, likely because the richly variegated BISAC codes allow many books to sift out into more specific subgenres. 
Literary fiction has typically ranked toward the bottom of LJ’s print fiction list. But as suggested by B&T’s statistics, it has been rising in recent years, likely reflecting a fruitful crossover between the literary and pop genres that has produced many language-rich yet plot-driven titles, including those now termed upmarket.

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